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1 


Vi    - 


INVENTORS  AND  MONEY-MAKERS 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO   •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA  -    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


INVENTORS 
AND   MONEY-MAKERS 


LECTURES   ON   SOME    RELATIONS   BETWEEN 

ECONOMICS    AND    PSYCHOLOGY    DELIVERED 

AT  BROWN  UNIVERSITY  IN  CONNECTION 

WITH  THE   CELEBRATION   OF  THE 

150TH  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE 

FOUNDATION  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


BY 


F.  W.  TAUSSIG,  Ph.D.,  LL.B.,  Litt.D. 

HENRY    LEE    PROFESSOR   OP   ECONOMICS 
IN   HARVARD   UNIVERSITY 


Nefo  fgotft 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1915 

All  rights  reserved 


u^qb 

\'3 


COPYBIGHT,  1915, 

By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 
Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  October,  1915. 


Norfoooli  $re$S8 

J.  8.  Cushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

This  volume  gives  the  substance  of  lec- 
tures delivered  at  Brown  University  in  con- 
nection with  the  celebration  of  the  150th 
anniversary  of  the  university's  foundation. 
I  have  amplified  the  lectures,  and  have  also 
annotated  them  with  some  freedom. 

The  reader  will  bear  in  mind  that  I  deal 
by  no  means  with  all  the  relations  between 
economics  and  psychology,  but  with  some 
only.  Much  is  being  done  along  the  whole 
border  line  between  these  fields  of  knowledge, 
and  I  touch  only  one  part  of  it,  —  that  which 
has  to  do  with  the  phenomena  of  instinct. 

R  W.  TAUSSIG. 


331166 

[v] 


CONTENTS 


Adam  Smith  on  a  supposed  instinct  of  barter,  1.  —  Modern  psy- 
chology, contrasted  with  the  associationist  views,  3.  —  Ter- 
minology of  "instincts,"  6. — Instincts  enumerated,  7. — 
Some  are  of  little  significance  for  economic  discussion ;  such 
as  the  instinct  of  play,  9,  and  the  hunting  instinct,  10. — 
The  instinct  of  contrivance,  11.  —  Its  spontaneity,  13 ;  its 
universality,  14.  —  Illustrations  from  biographies  of  Erics- 
son and  Edison,  15.  —  How  far  dependent  on  the  prospect 
of  gain,  17.  —  Under  what  conditions  evoked,  18.  —  The 
evidence  often  inconclusive,  20.  —  Extraordinary  strength 
of  the  instinct  in  conspicuous  cases,  21.  —  Its  generic  char- 
acter in  man,  22.  —  Contrast  with  animals,  23,  —  Curious 
and  aberrant  forms  :  Cartwright,  25 ;  Watt,  27 ;  Ericsson, 
28 ;  Morse,  30.  —  A  process  of  selection,  33.  —  Part  played 
by  the  business  man,  34.  —  Lack  of  business  capacity  in 
Ericsson,  35 ;  Edison,  37.  —  Deliberate  direction  of  inven- 
tion in  modern  times,  41.  —  Influence  of  pecuniary  gain  on 
inventors:     Edison,  42;  Watt,  44;  Fulton,  44;  Morse,  46. 

—  Mixed  motives,  48.  —  Conclusions,  50-54. 

II 

THE  INSTINCT  OF  CONTRIVANCE,  FURTHER 
CONSIDERED 

Relation  to  the  joy  of  labor  and  the  problem  of  happiness,  55. 

—  In  what  way  the  instinct  actuates  the  business  leader, 

[vii] 


CONTENTS 

57.  —  Building  manias,  59.  —  Problem  as  regards  workmen, 
61.  —  Influence  of  machinery,  62 ;  of  the  wages  system,  64 ; 
of  trade  union  policies,  66.  —  Intensified  friction  between 
employers  and  employees,  68.  —  How  far  remedies  are 
feasible :  cooperation,  profit  sharing,  scientific  manage- 
ment, 70.  —  Other  aspects:  group  emulation,  local  pride, 
and  the  like,  72. 

Ill 

THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  MONEY-MAKING 

Senior  on  the  desire  for  wealth,  76.  —  A  complex  psychological 
phenomenon,  77.  —  What  instincts  play  a  part,  79.  —  Con- 
'  trivance,  80.  —  Collection  or  accumulation,  80.  —  Acquisi- 
tion in  general,  83.  —  Domination  *  or  pugnacity,  84.  — 
Sombart's  discussion  of  racial  traits,  86.  —  Illustrations 
J  among  modern  business  leaders,  87.  —  "  Captains  of  indus- 
try," 88.  —  Desire  for  limitless  expansion  explained,  89.  — 
Bearing  on  industrial  combinations,  92.  —  On  trade  union 
movement,  93.  —  Emulation  and  imitation,  95.  —  "Social" 
emulation,  96.  —  Unceasing  desire  for  additional  wealth, 
98.  —  Historical  connection  with  feudal  ideals,  99. 

IV 

ALTRUISM;    THE  INSTINCT  OF  DEVOTION 

The  moral  sense,  the  instinct  of  devotion,  102.  —  Ignored  by 
economists,  103.  —  Explanation  partly  in  sway  of  utilita- 
rianism, 104.  —  Mainly  in  the  instinct  of  ratiocination, 
105.  —  temperamental  characteristics  of  economists,  106. 
—  Instinct  of  curiosity,  107.  —  "  Scientific  "  reasoning  in 
economics,  109.  —  How  far  devotion  or  sympathy  are  neg- 
ligible in  analyzing  business.  1^2.  —  Devotion  to  the  busi- 
ness itself,  114.  —  Alliance  of  devotion  with  other  instincts, 
116.  —  Devotion  in  public  business,  118.  —  Complexity  of 
the  desire  for  wealth,  121.  —  Bearing  of  these  speculations 

[viii] 


CONTENTS 

on  the  problem  of  happiness,  122.  —  Some  instincts  to  be 
enlisted,  others  to  be  curbed,  123.  —  Contrivance,  123.  — 
Collection,  124.  —  Emulation,  125.  —  Possible  utilization  of 
simulacra,  126.  —  Domination  and  leadership,  128.  —  Devo- 
tion, 130.  —  The  possibilities  of  the  future,  132. 


m 


INVENTORS  AND  MONEY- 
MAKERS 

I 

The  Instinct  of  Contrivance 

The  text  for  these  discourses  I  will  take, 
as  is  appropriate  for  an  economist's  homily, 
from  the  "  Wealth  of  Nations,"  a  book  which, 
though  no  longer  our  Bible,  is  to  be  revered 
still.  After  the  famous  opening  chapter  on 
the  Division  of  Labor,  Adam  Smith  goes  on 
to  consider  why  it  is  that  this  intricate  form 
of  industrial  organization  should  have  been 
developed ;  and  he  explains  it  thus : 

"This  division  of  labour,  from  which  so 
many  advantages  are  derived,  is  not  originally 
the  effect  of  any  human  wisdom,  which  fore- 
sees and  intends  that  general  opulence  to 
which  it  gives  occasion.     It  is  the  necessary, 

[1] 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

though  very  slow  and  gradual,  consequence  of 
a  certain  propensity  in  human  nature  which 
has  in  view  no  such  extensive  utility;  the 
propensity  to  truck,  barter,  and  exchange 
one  thing  for  another.  .  .  .  Whether  this 
propensity  be  one  of  those  original  principles 
in  human  nature,  of  which  no  further  account 
can  be  given;  or  whether,  as  seems  more 
probable,  it  be  the  necessary  consequence  of 
the  faculties  of  reason  and  speech,  it  belongs 
not  to  our  present  subject  to  enquire." 

It  has  long  been  a  matter  of  wonder  for 
me  that  this  passage  received  so  little  atten- 
tion —  indeed,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  no 
attention  at  all  —  from  Adam  Smith's  suc- 
cessors. All  the  reasoning  of  the  utilitarians 
who  constituted  the  main  body  of  his  fol- 
lowers during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  ran  counter  to  such  an  explanation. 
No,  the  utilitarians  must  say :  if  there  be 
a  propensity  to  truck  and  barter,  it  is  not 
the  cause  of  the  division  of  labor,  but  a 
result,  or  at  least  a  precipitate.  Men  began 
to  barter  not  because%hey  were  impelled  to 

[2] 


THE    INSTINCT   OF    CONTRIVANCE 

I  do  so  by  an  original  impulse  of  human  nature, 
but  because  they  found  it  to  be  advantageous ; 
they  found  that  they  got  more  for  their  labor 
and  pains  by  bartering  than  by  single-handed 
activity.  The  division  of  labor  and  the  opera- 
tions of  exchange  came  to  pass  simply  because 
larger  product  —  that  is,  more  pleasure  — 
was  got  from  the  same  labor  in  production, 
yhe  habit  of  exchange  might  indeed  become 
strong  as  time  went  on,  —  so  strong  as  to 
be  mistaken  for  an  inherent  cause  of  action. 
It  migbi^become  a  confirmed  and  settled 
rule  of  expedient  conduct,  such  as  were  all 
the  political  and  moral  axioms.  Original 
propensities  ?  The  utilitarians  recognized 
none  such,  except  the  primal  desire  to  avoid 
pain  and  secure  pleasure. 

The  psychologist  of  our  own  time,  if  con- 
fronted with  Adam  Smith's  thesis  and  the 
utilitarian  criticism,  would  speak  with  cau- 
tion. Probably  neither  is  quite  in  the  right. 
The  simple  and  mechanical  psychology  of 
the  utilitarians  and  associationists  is  gone 
beyond     rehabilitation.       Original     impulses 

[3] 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

there  are  in  plenty ;  and  it  is  entirely  within 
the  bounds  of  possibility  that  one  of  them 
should  be  a  propensity  to  truck  and  barter. 
But  of  the  existence  of  this  particular  pro- 
pensity we  have  no  good  evidence.  Indeed, 
one  of  the  very  circumstances  from  which  its 
existence  was  inferred  by  Adam  Smith  so  far 
from  confirming  his  analysis,  tends  to  throw 
doubt  on  its  innate  character.  The  fact 
that  no  sign  or  analog  of  such  an  instinct 
is  to  be  found  among  the  lower  animals  makes 
the  modern  man  of  science  question  whether 
it  is  to  be  reckoned  among  the  instincts  of 
the  human  animal.  All  psychological  specu- 
lation has  been  profoundly  influenced  by  the 
course  of  biological  research,  and  not  least 
by  that  part  of  it  which  is  concerned  with 
comparisons  between  the  conduct  of  man  and 
of  other  animals.  It  is  settled  that  we  differ 
from  the  other  animals  in  degree,  not  in 
kind ;  that,  just  as  our  physiological  processes 
and  the  structure  of  our  bodies  are  similar 
in  kind  to  theirs,  so  are  our  reactions,  our 
instincts,    doubtless    even    our    intelligence. 

[4] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

When  we  try  to  define  and  classify  the  human 
instincts,  we  look  for  indications  in  the  sim- 
pler and  more  obvious  animal  instincts. 
If  we  find  among  animals  something  that 
is  easily  identified  with  a  human  propensity, 
—  like  the  instinct  of  play,  for  example,  — 
we  accept  it  the  more  readily  as  a  true 
instinct;  and  if  we  find  nothing  analogous 
among  animals,  we  question  whether  we 
have  one  of  the  original  propensities  in  man. 
And  therefore  our  modern  psychologist 
would  doubtless  say  to  Adam  Smith  about 
the  propensity  to  truck  and  barter,  —  not 
proven;  but  would  also  say,  in  denial  of  the 
utilitarians  and  associationists,  —  not  im- 
possible.1 

I  have  used  the  terms  propensity,  impulse, 
instinct.  Classification  and  nomenclature 
on  those  topics  are  not  settled,  —  a  sufficient 

1The  only  suggestion  which  points  at  all  toward  any 
such  propensity  which  I  have  found  in  modern  discussion 
is  by  Sombart  (Der  Bourgeois,  p.  273  and  passim),  that 
certain  races  and  peoples,  e.g.  the  Florentines,  the  Scots, 
above  all  the  Jews,  have  a  rooted  disposition  (Urveranlagung) 
toward  trading. 

[5] 


§ 
INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

indication  that  there  is  lack  of  full  agree- 
ment on  the  subject  matter.  The  familiar 
word  "instinct"  is  used  to  designate  very 
diverse  degrees  of  automatic  impulse  and 
conduct,  from  the  simplest  reflex  actions  to 
innate  tendencies  of  a  broad  and  general 
kind.  It  is  the  last  named  —  general  innate 
tendencies  —  which  are  chiefly  had  in  mind 
by  the  writers  on  sociology  and  ,  economics 
and  politics.  This  diversity  of  usage  has 
led  Mr.  Graham  Wallas  to  propose  that  we 
adopt  a  new  and  noncommittal  term  —  he 
suggests  "dispositions"  —  to  designate  those 
general  human  tendencies  whose  influence 
as  social  forces  we  find  so  great.1  But  I  am 
disposed  to  believe  that,  here  as  elsewhere, 
the  economist  gains  rather  than  loses  by 
holding  fast  to  everyday  phraseology.  The 
very  connotations  of  the  word  instinct  are 
likely  to  be  helpful  to  us,  even  though  not  so 
to  the  biologists  or  even  the  psychologists. 

1  The  Great  Society y  Chs.  II,  III.  Professor  Veblen,  on  the 
other  hand,  sticks  to  the  familiar  term,  instinct;  see  his 
Instinct  qf  Workmanship,  Introduction. 

[6] 


THE    INSTINCT   OF    CONTRIVANCE 

At  all  events,  I  shall  speak  freely  of  instincts ; 
and  the  main  theme  in  what  follows  will  be 
the  significance  of  the  human  "instincts" 
for  the  purposes  of  economic  analysis. 

To  make  out  a  schematic  list  of  the  social 
instincts  would  be  pedantic,  and  indeed  for 
the  present  discussion,  superfluous.  There 
is  no  accepted  classification  or  enumeration; 
on  this  matter,  as  on  terminology,  opinions 
diverge.  It  will  suffice  to  mention  some  of 
the  instincts  which  on  their  face  appear  to 
be  significant  in  economic  inquiry.  Perhaps 
most  conspicuous  among  them,  and  that 
to  which  I  shall  chiefly  give  attention  in  the 
present  lecture,  is  the  instinct  of  contrivance 
or  workmanship.  Another  which  clearly  has 
economic  significance  is  accumulation,  ac- 
quisitiveness, collection,  ownership.  Still 
others  are  dominationy|)ugnacity,  predation ; 
sympathy  or  devotion;  play,  the  chase, 
adventure;  curiosity  or  ratiocination;  and 
so  on,  through  a  list  that  might  be  consider- 
ably enlarged.  Imitation  and  emulation,  gre- 
gariousness,  and  the  mere  physiological  im- 

[7] 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

pulse  to  activity  are  of  quite  too  general  a 
character  to  be  regarded  as  specific  instincts. 
Yet  they  too  must  be  considered  by  the 
economist.  I  do  no  more  than  mention 
the  sexual  impulse  and  the  domestic  affec* 
tions ;  since  these,  too  obvious  to  be  entirely 
neglected,  have  not  failed  to  receive  attention 
in  our  science.1 

;  Some  of  the  instincts  just  mentioned,  and 
perhaps  others  on  which  the  psychologist 
would  lay  stress,  can  be  dismissed,  for  the 
purposes  of  the  present  discussion,  with 
comparatively  scant  mention.  This  can  be 
done  with  the  instinct  of  play,  for  example. 
It  has  great  importance  for  some  social 
problems.     We  have  learned  that  it  is  among 

1  Nothing  in  modern  discussion  has  contributed  more  to 
reshape  opinion  on  this  general  topic  than  the  chapter  on 
instinct  in  James,  Principles  of  Psychology  (Vol.  II,  Ch. 
XXIV).  Among  recent  contributions,  special  reference 
should  be  made  to  McDougall,  Social  Psychology  (1910) ; 
a  book  to  be  ranked  with  James's,  as  regards  both  attractive- 
ness of  style  and  vigor  of  thought.  A  systematic  survey  of 
other  recent  literature  is  by  W.  C.  Mitchell,  "Human  Behavior 
and  Economics,"  in  the  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics, 
November,  1914. 

[8] 


THE   INSTINCT   OF   CONTRIVANCE 

those  which  should  not  be  balked ;  that  it  is 
one,  too,  whose  full  satisfaction  brings  no 
aftermath.  The  wise  legislator  and  social  re- 
former looks  to  it  for  relief  from  the  monot- 
ony of  our  industrial  life,  for  healthful  and 
joyous  vent  to  activity  and  emulation.  Not 
only  this;  in  production  itself,  in  the  irk- 
some round  of  the  everyday  working  world, 
the  instinct  of  play  may  be  utilized  for  giving 
some  savor  to  that  which  might  otherwise 
be  hopelessly  flat  and  stale.  Yet  its  direct 
consequence  in  economics  would  seem  to  be 
chiefly  in  what  is  sometimes  called  the  theory 
of  consumption,  — -  that  uncertain  group  of 
topics  in  which  it  is  difficult  to  get  beyond 
platitude  and  exhortation.  True,  one  might 
conceivably  regard  activity  in  play  as  a  sort 
of  training  for  economic  power ;  just  as  it  has 
been  thought  to  promote  political  or  military 
vigor.  Wellington  is  said  to  have  remarked 
that  the  battle  of  Waterloo  was  won  on  the 
playing  fields  of  Eton.  But  the  experiences 
of  the  American  civil  war  and  of  the  Franco- 
German   war  of   1870   throw   doubt  on   the 

[9] 


INVENTORS  AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

validity  of  this  pronouncement,  even  in  the 
military  sphere.  Still  more  does  modern 
industrial  development  in  the  United  States 
and  in  Germany  throw  doubt  on  its  appli- 
cability to  that  of  economics.  The  truth 
would  seem  to  be  that  much  play,  elaborate 
play,  is  a  result  of  industrial  prosperity  rather 
than  a  cause  of  industrial  efficiency.  It  is  a 
concomitant  of  the  ample  income  and  the 
leisure  which  follow  success  in  economic 
activity,  but  negligible  among  the  causes  of 
success.  The  instinct  of  play  explains  why 
people  spend  in  certain  directions  —  witness 
the  "baseball  business"  —  but  not  how  they 
become  possessed  of  the  means  for  spending. 
The  same  is  true  in  the  main  of  the  instinct 
of  the  chase,  unmistakably  a  survival  from 
the  stage  of  savagery.  It  is  often  treated  as 
a  form  of  the  play  instinct,  and  no  doubt  is 
similar  to  this  in  its  modern  manifestations. 
I  am  disposed  to  regard  it  as  a  more  direct 
and  simple  inheritance  from  the  period  when 
hunting  was  as  necessary  for  man  as  for  any 
other  predatory  animal.     At  all  events,  its 

[10] 


THE  INSTINCT   OF    CONTRIVANCE 

satisfaction  nowadays  is  among  the  "utili- 
ties" which  men  prize  highly;  it  has  its 
obvious  effects  on  the  direction  of  expendi- 
ture, and  so  in  turn  on  the  direction  of  "pro- 
ductive" effort.  In  the  sweep  of  history  the 
chase  is  of  somewhat  larger  significance. 
Game  laws  play  no  small  part  in  the  tale  of 
feudal  oppression  and  even  of  agricultural 
development.  It  is  not  often  recognized  that 
the  hated  restrictions  and  requirements  of 
the  game  laws  were  the  consequences  of  an 
instinct  which  has  in  peculiar  degree  the 
quality  of  an  automatic  reaction,  —  inherited, 
atavistic,  conventionalized,  no  longer  service- 
able, indeed  probably  disserviceable. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  some  of  the  instincts 
which  are  direct  and  obvious  springs  of  indus- 
trial activity.  First  among  them  may  be 
considered  that  mentioned  a  moment  ago,  — 
the  instinct  of  contrivance  or  workmanship.1 

If  Adam  Smith  had  referred  to  this  among 
the  original  propensities  of  which  the  econo- 

1  McDougalPs  term,  /'contrivance,"  seems  to  me  better 
than  Veblen's  "workmanship." 

mi 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

mist  needs  to  give  no  further  account,  the 
psychologist  of  our  day  would  have  rendered 
an  opinion  more  unreservedly  favorable  than 
on  the  alleged  propensity  to  truck  and  barter. 
There  is  abundant  evidence  that  the  human 
animal  follows  an  instinct  of  contrivance. 
The  utilitarians  would  indeed  explain  it  in 
their  familiar  fashion :  men  contrive  and 
invent  because  they  find  it  advantageous 
to  do  so.  But  the  matter  is  not  so  simple  as 
this.  The  very  comparison  with  the  lower 
animals,  which  Adam  Smith  misapplied,  may 
here  be  turned  to  support  his  general  method 
of  explanation.  The  instinct  of  contrivance 
is  widespread  in  the  animal  world,  —  among 
insects,  birds,  mammals  (the  beaver  is  a 
notable  illustration).  In  origin  doubtless  it 
goes  back  to  the  fact  of  having  been  at  some 
stage  advantageous.  For  its  evolution,  as 
for  that  of  every  other  instinct,  one  turns 
almost  as  a  matter  of  course  to  the  Dar- 
winian organon.  Those  creatures  which  were 
disposed  to  contrive  had  a  better  chance  in 
the   struggle   than   their  fellows;    they   sur- 

[12] 


THE    INSTINCT   OF   CONTRIVANCE 

vived,  and  their  nervous  structure  was  trans- 
mitted to  their  descendants.  We  need  not 
concern  ourselves  with  the  problems  that  vex 
the  biologists  and  psychologists,  —  the  first 
steps  in  variation,  the  mechanism  of  the 
transmission  of  characters,  the  relation 
between  body  and  mind  and  that  between 
instinct  and  experience.  For  our  purposes 
it  suffices  that  all  are  now  agreed  on  the 
transmission  of  propensities  as  well  as  of 
anatomical  structure.  And  among  the  in- 
herited instincts,  in  men  as  in  animals,  we 
have  to  deal  with  that  of  contrivance  and 
construction. 

That  there  is  a  well-marked  instinct  of  this 
sort  is  made  tolerably  certain  by  another 
kind  of  evidence :  its  unmistakable  spon- 
taneity and  extraordinary  development  in 
some  individuals.  When  a  trait  appears  over- 
whelmingly and  unmistakably  in  a  few,  we 
may  infer  that  it  is  present  to  some  degree 
among  all,  even  though  so  weak  at  the  other 
extreme  of  the  scale  as  scarce  to  be  recogniz- 
able.    Such  is  the  case  with  the  instinct  of 

[13] 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

sympathy,  love,  devotion,  —  powerful  to  our 
amazement  among  a  chosen  few,  hardly  to 
be  detected  among  the  grossly  selfish,  yet 
in  no  person  quite  absent.  The  instinct  of 
rhythm,  again,  is  so  spontaneous  and  impetu- 
ous in  those  of  poetic  and  musical  genius  that 
we  must  suspect  that  we  have  to  deal  here 
also  with  one  shared  universally.  So  far  as 
concerns  the  instinct  of  contrivance,  we  are 
familiar  not  only  with  its  extreme  manifesta- 
tions but  with  its  wide  dispersion. 

Every  child  likes  to  build  with  blocks 
and  play  with  tools.  When  schoolboys  or 
college  undergraduates  carve  letters  and 
numbers  on  their  desks,  they  are  no  more  de- 
liberately wicked  than  they  are  when  sky- 
larking or  ball  playing :  they  obey  the  inborn 
bent.  Every  man  likes  to  whittle.  A  new 
dodge  appeals  to  all.  The  born  inventor  is 
among  the  best  known  figures  in  the  chroni- 
cles of  industry.  No  doubt  the  bent  to 
contrivance  is  less  specific  in  its  direction 
among  men  than  among  animals,  more  vari- 
ous in  degree,  more  likely  to  be  overlaid  and 

[Ml 


THE    INSTINCT   OF    CONTRIVANCE 

complicated,  to  be  thwarted  or  concealed. 
Such  is  the  case  with  all  our  instincts.  But 
it  is  none  the  less  a  true  instinct,  pressing 
imperiously  to  a  specific  kind  of  activity.  • 

The  biographies  of  inventors  give  abundant 
illustrations  of  the  state  of  inward  happiness 
which  comes  from  the  exercise  of  the  con- 
triving bent.  Of  Ericsson,  for  example,  we 
read  that  "he  was  never  so  happy  as  when 
engaged  with  his  drawing.  ...  As  a 
draughtsman  he  had  no  rival,  past  or  present, 
and  the  outlines  of  new  devices  grew  upon 
the  paper  as  if  by  magic."  l  The  most  en- 
tertaining instance  which  I  have  come  across 
is  in  an  episode  of  Edison's  life.  For  many 
years  Edison  was  engaged  on  a  venture  in 
which  the  magnetite  ores  of  New  Jersey  were 
to  be  the  basis  of  a  great  iron  and  steel  in- 
dustry. A  number  of  new  methods  in  engi- 
neering and  metallurgy  had  to  be  worked  out, 
—  crushing  machinery  of  enormous  power 
and  novel  design,  huge  magnets  for  separat- 
ing   the    ore,    concentrating    apparatus,    and 

1  Church,  Life  of  Ericsson,  Vol.  II,  p.  313. 
[15] 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

so  on.  The  great  inventor  showed  here 
the  same  originality  and  the  same  extraordi- 
nary persistence  as  in  the  other  enterprises 
more  familiarly  associated  with  his  name. 
But  the  scheme,  though  its  prosecution  was 
accompanied  by  remarkable  achievements  in 
engineering,  proved  financially  a  failure.  The 
concentrated  ore  could  not  be  put  on  the 
market  on  terms  to  compete  with  the  vast 
supplies  of  rich  ore*  from  the  Lake  Superior 
districts.  Edison  embarked  in  the  venture 
the  whole  of  the  very  considerable  fortune 
which  he  had  secured  from  his  previous  elec- 
tric inventions,  and  lost  it  all.  His  friend 
and  biographer  relates  that  after  the  closing 
of  the  great  works  and  the  abandonment  of 
the  entire  new-built  village,  "Mr.  Edison 
and  I  were  on  our  way  from  the  cement  plant 
at  New  Village,  New  Jersey,  to  his  home  at 
Orange.  When  we  arrived  at  Dover,  New 
Jersey,  we  got  a  New  York  newspaper,  and 
I  called  his  attention  to  the  quotation  of  that 
day  on  General  Electric.  Mr.  Edison  then 
asked:    'If  I  hadn't  sold  any  of  mine,  what 

[16] 


THE    INSTINCT   OF   CONTRIVANCE 

would  it  be  worth  to-day?'  and  after  some 
figuring  I  replied :  '  Over  four  million  dol- 
lars.' When  Mr.  Edison  is  thinking  seri- 
ously over  a  problem  he  is  in  the  habit  of 
pulling  his  right  eyebrow,  which  he  did  now 
for  fifteen  or  twenty  seconds.  Then  his 
face  lighted  up,  and  he  said:  'Well,  it's  all 
gone,  but  we  had  a  hell  of  a  good  time  spend- 
ing it!'" 

If  now  we  admit  that  there  is  an  instinct 
of  contrivance,  and  that  there  is  a  keen  satis- 
faction in  following  it,  we  are  led  to  question 
the  proposition  that  progress  in  the  arts  de- 
pends on  an  experience  or  prospect  of  gain. 
This  had  been  the  view  of  the  older  utili- 
tarians :  men  contrived  simply  because  this 
was  conducive  to  gain,  and  would  not  con- 
trive unless  prompted  by  the  experience  and 
prospect  of  gain.  Hence  there  must  be 
premiums  and  prizes,  patent  laws,  protected 
trade-marks,  the  bait  of  profit.  But  if  there 
is  a  spontaneous  impulse,  —  spontaneous  in 
the  sense  of  not  being  dependent  for  its  initi- 
ation on  a  calculated  gain,  —  we  may  be  led 

[17] 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

to  conclude  that  the  patent  system,  for 
example,  is  a  huge  mistake.  Men  would 
invent  anyhow:  they  obey  the  instinct  and 
therein  take  joy.  So  poets  are  actuated,  mu- 
sicians, men  of  science.  In  their  activities 
we  have  long  recognized  the  intrinsic  satis- 
faction from  the  exercise  of  inborn  im- 
pulse. It  is  at  least  a  question  whether 
copyright  has  aroused  genius  or  evoked  litera- 
ture. The  social  reformer  of  idealistic  type 
declares  that  all  such  sordid  motivation  is  be- 
side the  mark.  No  doubt,  once  the  practices 
and  habits  of  the  selfish  competitive  regime 
are  established,  men  of  all  sorts  will  fall  into 
them.  But  to  say  that  the  forward  march  of 
the  industrial  arts  is  dependent  on  a  patent 
system  is  like  saying  that  poetry,  music,  the 
plastic  arts  are  merely  forms  of  money-making. 
—  The  inquiry  then  must  take  another  turn. 
Granted  that  there  is  the  instinct,  the  ques- 
tion remains,  what  are  the  conditions  under 
which  it  is  evoked,  what  those  under  which 
it  is  made  conducive  to  the  general  welfare? 
It    is    a    commonplace    in    psychology    that 

[18] 


THE   INSTINCT   OF   CONTRIVANCE 

instincts  in  man  are  less  automatic,  less 
specific  in  their  direction  than  in  animals, 
modifiable  in  greater  degree  through  the 
lessons  of  experience  and  the  exercise  of  the 
ywill.  The  environment  is  of  enormous  influ- 
ence in  developing  some  instincts,  in  smother- 
ing others.  What  are  the  simple  and  direct 
manifestations  and  consequences  of  the  in- 
stinct of  contrivance?  How  far  have  they 
been  modified  in  the  past  by  the  surround- 
ings familiar  to  us,  how  far  are  they  likely  to 
be  modified  in  the  future  by  different  sur- 
roundings ? 

On  these  topics  we  are  much  in  the  dark; 
and  this  for  the  same  cause  that  prevents 
decisive  answers  to  many  economic  and  social 
questions.  We  are  unable,  or  at  least  un- 
willing, to  experiment  with  ourselves.  From 
infancy  we  are  modified;  from  a  very  early 
stage  we  are  subjected  to  varied  experiences, 
inhibitions,  stimulations,  prepossessions. 
What  most  of  us  would  be  like  if  subjected 
rigorously  and  continuously  to  a  selected  set 
of  influences  we  do  not  know  at  all.     What 

[19] 


invento;rs  and  money-makers 

the  poet  or  inventor  would  do  if  he  grew  up 
in  a  collectivist  or  communist  society  we 
must  hesitate  to  say.  The  only  direct  evi- 
dence we  have  is  from  observation  of  men's 
doings  in  existing  society,  so  very  different 
in  its  psychological  appeals.  And  even  the 
evidence  from  observation  is  not  direct. 
It  is  evidence  from  external  conduct,  and 
from  occasional  utterance,  —  of  a  kind  that 
gives  but  uncertain  clews  on  the  problem  of 
motivation.  Almost  all  men  deceive  them- 
selves as  well  as  their  associates  with  con- 
ventional phrases,  with  expressions  which, 
though  quite  devoid  of  insincerity,  yet  are 
far  from  genuine. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  from  this  dubious  sort 
of  evidence  that  we  must  seek  to  gather 
conclusions.  As  regards  the  instinct  of  con- 
trivance, it  is  chiefly  available  in  the  biog- 
raphies of  inventors,  in  their  own  utterances, 
and  in  the  impressions  made  by  them  on 
associates.  Of  this  sort  of  evidence  there  is 
not  a  little.  Unfortunately  it  is  almost  in- 
variably    second-hand.      Memoirs,     reminis- 

[20] 


THE   INSTINCT   OF   CONTRIVANCE 

cences,  autobiographies  are  of  the  rarest. 
We  have  to  rely  on  occasional  flashes  of  self- 
revelation  and  on  such  general  trend  as 
perhaps  can  be  observed  in  the  second-hand 
material.1 

\  One  thing  stands  out  conspicuously:  the 
race  of  contrivers  and  inventors  does  obey 
an  inborn  and  irresistible  impulse.  Schemes 
and  experiments  begin  in  childhood,  and 
persist  so  long  as  life  and  strength  hold.  It 
matters  not  whether  a  fortune  is  made  or 
pecuniary  distress  is  chronic :  there  is  increas- 
ing interest  in  new  dodges,  unceasing  trial 
of  new  devices.     So  far  the  socialists  are  in 

1  The  biographies  of  inventors  are  always  concerned  more 
with  the  externals  of  achievement  than  with  the  psychological 
make-up  of  their  subjects.  Hence  they  give  much  less  light 
than  is  to  be  desired  on  the  topics  here  under  consideration. 
Yet  something  is  to  be  gleaned  from  them;  and  no  doubt 
much  more  would  be  yielded  to  a  systematic  survey  of  all 
the  available  memoirs,  letters,  biographies.  I  have  found 
suggestive  passages  in  the  following  books :  A  Memoir  of 
Edmund  Cartwright  (1843) ;  Muirhead,  Life  of  Watt  (1859) ; 
Dickinson,  Life  of  Fulton  (1913) ;  Church,  Life  of  Ericsson 
(1890);  Prime,  Life  of  Morse  (1875),  and  Morse,  Letters 
and  Journals  of  S.  F.  B.  Morse  (1914) ;  Dyer  and  Martin, 
Edison:  His  Life  and  Inventions  (1910). 

[21] 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

the  right.  Cartwright  was  in  difficulties  al- 
most all  his  life;  yet  he  never  relaxed  his 
interest  in  any  and  every  sort  of  mechanical 
device.  Edison  made  fortunes  and  lost 
them  and  made  them  again;  but  through- 
out he  remained  the  same  amazing  and  per- 
sistent contriver.  And  it  would  seem  that 
no  satisfaction  from  pecuniary  success  or 
worldly  recognition  equals  the  absorbed  inter- 
est of  trial,  experiment,  novel  problems, 
happy  solutions. 

Not  only  is  the  instinct  imperious;  it  is 
generic.  We  are  misled  by  the  fact  that 
the  names  of  most  inventors  are  associated 
with  one  device,  at  most  two :  Watt  with 
the  steam  engine,  Cartwright  with  the  power 
loom  and  the  combing  machine,  Fulton 
with  the  steamboat,  Howe  with  the  sewing 
machine,  Ericsson  with  the  screw  propeller 
and  the  monitor,  Bell  with  the  telephone, 
Edison  with  the  incandescent  light  and  the 
moving  picture.  Their  biographies  show  that 
they  were  constantly  experimenting  on  all 
sorts  of  schemes,  promising  and  unpromising ; 

[22] 


THE    INSTINCT   OF    CONTRIVANCE 

sometimes  with  money -making  intent,  some- 
times in  the  spirit  of  scientific  research,  and 
sometimes  merely  in  sport.  Werner  Sie- 
mens, one  of  the  few  who  combined  a  strictly 
scientific  temper  with  the  genius  for  contriv- 
ance, began  with  the  telegraph,  proceeded 
to  the  metallurgy  of  iron  and  copper,  closed 
with  devotion  to  the  field  of  pure  science. 
Cartwright  turned  his  daring  and  original 
mind  to  a  host  of  contrivances.  Fulton 
gave  years  to  canals  and  to  submarine 
boats  before  he  turned  to  steamboats,  and 
was  ready  with  a  plan  for  an  armored  man- 
o'-war  when  the  commercial  steamboat  had 
been  only  half  perfected.  Ericsson  was 
intent  on  a  dozen  devices,  among  which  the 
caloric  (hot-air)  engine  was  conspicuous. 

In  other  words,  the  instinct  in  man,  unlike 
the  corresponding  instinct  in  animals,  is 
not  directed  to  one  specific  end.  The  bea- 
ver's instinct  turns  to  damming  the  stream 
and  constructing  the  lodge,  and  to  these 
only ;  that  of  the  bee  to  the  hive,  —  almost 
a  miracle,  but  standing  quite  by  itself;   that 

[231 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

of  the  bird  to  building  the  nest.  But  in 
man,  under  the  influence  of  forces  that  we 
but  dimly  perceive,  the  inherited  propensity 
roams  afield.  It  is  directed  to  all  sorts  of 
contrivances,  no  longer  restricted  to  those 
immediately  serviceable.  And  with  this  shed- 
ding of  the  clearly  marked  teleological  char- 
acter, there  seems  to  develop  an  erratic  streak. 
The  instinct  becomes  wandering ;  it  attaches 
itself  to  all  sorts  of  devices  and  intricacies; 
its  manifestations  sometimes  seem  absurd.  A 
curious  book  has  been  recently  published 
on  "cats'  cradles,"  —  those  entertaining  en- 
tanglements of  threads  that  delighted  us  in 
childhood.1  Civilized  and  barbarian  races 
alike  have  contributed  to  the  recorded  array 
of  varied  and  intricate  figures,  and  the  an- 
thropologists have  tried  to  discern  in  them 
some  significant  general  development.  It 
would  seem  that  they  are  simply  manifesta- 
tions of  the  instinct  of  contrivance,  followed 
quite  without  regard  to  an  ulterior  aim. 

1  String  Figures;   a  Study  of  Cats9  Cradles.    By  Caroline 
F.Jayne(1906). 

[24] 


THE    INSTINCT   OF    CONTRIVANCE 

The  biographies  of  inventors  supply  abun- 
dant illustrations  on  the  wide  range  and  the 
curious  forms  of  the  instinct  of  contrivance. 
Of  Cart wright,  for  example,  we  read :   _ . 

"Cartwright  never  ceased  inventing. 
When  he  settled  down  in  London  he  set  him- 
self to  the  systematic  pursuit  of  scientific 
discovery.  .  .  .  His  little  house  in  Maryle- 
bone  Fields  became  a  very  treasure-house 
of  arts  and  sciences;  nothing  was  too  little 
and  nothing  too  great  to  exercise  his  ingenuity 
upon.  He  made  bread  in  his  own  kitchen 
by  machinery ;  published  a  scheme  for  render- 
ing houses  fire-proof;  invented  bricks  on  a 
geometrical  system;  made  a  machine  for 
biscuit-baking;  helped  Fulton  with  his  first 
steamship  models;  brought  chemistry  to 
bear  upon  the  science  of  agriculture;  intro- 
duced a  new  three-furrow  plough;  got  the 
Agricultural  Board's  gold  medal  for  experi- 
ments in  manure,  and  their  silver  medal  for 
an  essay  on  the  culture  of  potatoes ;  and 
obtained  patents  for  calendering  linens,  mak- 
ing ropes,  and  cutting  velvet  pile.     Indeed 

[25] 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

it  may  be  said  of  him  that  he  went  to  the 
grave  inventing.  Being  sent  to  Dover,  in 
his  eightieth  year,  for  warm  sea-bathing,  he 
invented  a  method  by  which  the  bathman 
saved  the  labor  of  two  men  in  pumping  up 
the  water.  A  few  weeks  later  he  designed 
the  model  of  a  new  Centaur  carriage,  as  he 
styled  it;  and  a  day  or  two  previous  to  his 
death  he  wrote  an  elaborate  argument  to  a 
friend  on  a  plan  he  had  discovered  of  working 
the  steam-engine  by  gunpowder  instead  of 
steam."  *  It  might  be  added  that  in  youth 
he  published  poems,  and  in  old  age  sent  to  the 
Royal  Society  a  paper  propounding  (to  cite 
his  own  account)  "a  new  theory  of  the  plan- 
etary system,  as  far  as  it  relates  to  the  power 
by  which  the  planets  are  impelled  around 
the  sun."  2 

1 1  quote  from  Burnley,  History  of  Wool  and  Wool-combing \ 
p.  132. 

2  Memoir  of  Cartwright,  pp.  17>  284.  The  following  is  from 
one  of  his  last  letters  : 

"I  have  luckily  discovered  a  method  of  working  an  engine 
by  explosion,  in  a  way  to  be  perfectly  secure  from  danger, 
and  completely  effectual.     You  will  be  surprised  when  I  tell 

[26] 


THE    INSTINCT   OF    CONTRIVANCE 

Watt  was  interested  in  a  quantity  of  inven- 
tions and  devices.  Among  them  may  be 
mentioned  a  new  kind  of  clock  which,  to 
quote  Watt's  own  language,  "is  to  be  ranked 
in  mechanics  as  riddles  and  rebuses  are  ranked 
in  poetry";  a  micrometer;  a  drawing  ma- 
chine, which  he  himself  termed  "a  gim- 
crack";  a  copying  machine  for  letters,  pro- 
totype of  the  copying  devices  so  long  in  use ; 
a  machine  for  drying  linen  and  muslin  by 
steam ;  one  for  getting  illuminating  gas  from 
coal  ("he  will  ever  be  known  as  the  true 
inventor  of  the  beautiful  system  of  lighting 
by  gas");  a  new  kind  of  oil  lamp  long 
manufactured  at  the  Soho  works;  and  a 
smoke-consuming  device,  on  the  down-draft 
principle.1    Last,    but    not    least  significant, 

you  it  is  by  gunpowder.  .  .  .  This,  my  dear  sir,  I  have 
(in  theory)  accomplished ;  and  by  a  contrivance,  equally  cer- 
tain as  it  is  simple,  —  more  simple,  indeed,  than  the  lock  of  a 
common  gun.  .  .  .  Should  my  ideas  on  this  business  be, 
as  I  have  every  reason  to  think,  correct,  the  discovery  will 
be  one  of  the  greatest  importance."     Ibid.,  p.  289. 

1  Muirhead,  Life  of  Watt,  pp.  182,  183,  187,  193,  222,  252, 
324,  350. 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

was  a  machine  for  copying  (reproducing) 
sculpture,  which  he  himself  termed  a  "hobby- 
horse," and  which  seems  to  have  amused 
and  indeed  absorbed  him  for  the  last  twenty 
years  of  his  life  (from  1791  to  1819).  Long 
after  he  was  prosperous  and  honored,  the 
old  man  spent  much  time  in  his  garret, 
hot  or  cold,  over  this  machine;  he  was  sure 
it  would  succeed.  He  spoke  of  it  as  the 
"diminishing  machine"  (i.e.  reproducing  on 
a  smaller  scale).1  The  garret  in  which  he 
worked  at  it  was  long  preserved,  for  senti- 
ment, by  his  descendants,  with  its  tools  and 
models.  I  suspect  that  if  one  took  a  look 
into  this  hallowed  chamber,  one  would  see 
in  it  mechanical  marvels  —  but  artistic 
atrocities. 

Ericsson  was  no  less  prolific  than  Watt, 
and  his  career  contains  similar  illustrations 
of  the  oddities  of  inventors.     "When  he  took 

1  Muirhead,  Life  of  Watt,  p.  356  et  seq.  As  is  well  known, 
machines  on  Watt's  principle  have  been  highly  perfected 
in  modern  times,  and  the  resulting  reproductions  are  by 
no  means  artistically  bad. 

[28] 


THE   INSTINCT   OF    CONTRIVANCE 

possession  of  his  new  quarters  [the  house  on 
Beach  Street,  which  he  bought  in  1864]  he 
found  his  company  disputed  by  a  numerous 
horde  of  rats,  who  considered  themselves 
tenants  at  will,  and  stubbornly  refused  to 
yield  possession.  .  .  .  Regarding  the  situa- 
tion as  a  problem  to  be  solved  by  mechanical 
means,  with  his  own  hands  he  drew  the  plans 
for  a  vast  and  mighty  trap.  To  the  leading 
idea  [of  a  water-tank  beneath  a  trap-door] 
he  laid  no  claim,  but  the  details  were  wholly 
new,  and  upon  an  unheard-of  scale.  Trac- 
ings were  made  by  an  assistant  draughts- 
man, and  went  the  rounds  of  the  shop;  the 
pattern-maker,  the  brass-founder,  the  finisher, 
the  carpenter,  the  tinsmith,  each  had  a  share 
in  this  novel  work.  At  last  it  was  completed 
and  erected ;  it  filled  up  half  the  basement, 
and  was  baited  with  half  a  cheese.  .  .  .  But 
he  had  underestimated  the  cunning  of  the 
rodents ;  as  a  place  for  keeping  cheese  in 
safety,  the  ponderous  engine  answered  admir- 
ably, but  it  did  not  frighten  away  the  obnox- 
ious animals ;  and  he  was  forced  to  admit  that 

[29] 


\ 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

1  these   little   beasts   have   brains   altogether 
too  big  for  their  heads. '  "  * 

Turning  to  one  of  the  inventors  of  the 
second  rank,  S.  F.  B.  Morse,  whose  name  is 
associated  with  the  telegraph,  —  not  to  be 
compared  with  men  like  Cartwright,  Watt,  or 
Edison  for  fertility  of  contrivance,  yet  de- 
servedly high  in  fame,  —  we  find  the  same 
toying  with  devices  that  have  no  teleological 
aspect.  Read  what  Morse,  in  his  early  days, 
wrote  to  a  young  woman  of  his  acquaintance : 
"I  send  by  Mr.  Ambrose  with  the  book  the 
lock  which  I  once  mentioned  to  you ;   it  may 

1  Church,  Life  of  Ericsson,  Vol.  II,  p.  306.  Ericsson  was 
perhaps  the  most  eccentric  of  all  this  eccentric  tribe.  No 
less  than  "240  pins  were  required  to  make  faultlessly 
smooth  the  sheet  covering  his  mattress."  Yet  "a  rough 
wooden  box,  or  a  dictionary,  served  him  for  a  pillow  when  he 
turned  aside  from  his  work  to  stretch  himself  out  at  full 
length  for  a  nap  on  a  table  standing  opposite  his  desk.  Until 
this  bright  idea  of  lengthening  it  occurred  to  him  one  day, 
he  slept  most  uncomfortably  with  his  legs  dangling  over  the 
edge  of  the  table."  "Summer  and  winter,  he  wore  vests  and 
stocks  of  buff  Marseilles  or  pique ;  this  material  having  once 
attracted  his  fancy,  he  had  bought  one  hundred  and  fifty 
yards  of  it  and  used  it  for  these  garments  during  the  remainder 
of  his  life."  —  Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  312,  314,  317. 

[30] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

amuse  you.  I  think  it  will  puzzle  the  in- 
genuity of  Mr.  J.  to  find  it  out.  I  will  tell 
you  how  it  opens  by  the  annexed  figure : 
the  word  that  opens  it  must  be  spelt  in  a  line 
between  the  two  marks  on  the  end-pieces, 
and  when  spelt  the  right-hand  end  pulls 
out  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch,  and  the  ketch 
can  be  lifted  up.  You  must  not  tell  Mr.  J. 
the  key-word ;  it  is  the  name  of  some  one  you 
know.  I  must  leave  it  for  your  ingenuity 
to  find  out  whose  it  is."  2 

These  discursive  and  erratic  manifesta- 
tions of  the  instinct  of  contrivance  are  par- 
alleled by  similar  vagaries  in  the  working  of 
other  human  instincts.  They  are  in  marked 
contrast  with  the  simple  and  almost  monot- 
onous manifestations  which  we  observe  in 
the  lower  animals.2  I  have  already  referred 
to  the  simplicity  which  we  find  among  animals 
in  the  working  of  the  instinct  of  contrivance 

1  Prime,  Life  of  Morse,  p.  105.  —  It  may  be  noted  that 
Morse,  like  Watt,  gave  attention  to  a  machine  for  reproducing 
sculpture.   Ibid,,  p.  127. 

2  As  was  long  ago  remarked  by  Darwin,  Descent  of  Man, 
Vol.  H,  p.  374  seq. 

[31] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

itself :  the  beaver  with  his  dam,  the  bird  with 
its  nest,  and  so  on.  The  same  sort  of  contrast 
is  to  be  seen  as  regards  other  instincts.  That 
of  play  takes  in  man  all  sorts  of  unexpected 
forms.  Puppies  and  dogs  snarl  at  each  other 
in  mimic  combat,  and  chase  one  another  as  if 
eagerly  on  the  hunt;  no  doubt  birds  pursue 
their  comrades  in  pure  joy  of  flight.  But 
what  a  restricted  range  in  comparison  with 
the  amazing  variety  of  man's  sport  and  play ! 
Athletic  contests  alone  take  an  infinite  variety 
of  forms.  The  instinct  of  collection,  which 
in  animals  is  confined  chiefly  to  the  acquisi- 
tion of  stores  of  food,  is  perhaps  the  most 
extraordinary  of  all.  It  ranges  from  postage 
stamps  to  old  masters,  from  bric-a-brac  to 
scientific  specimens,  from  violins  to  incu- 
nabula.1 This  multifariousness  in  the  scope 
of  the  instincts    in    man    is    doubtless    due 

1  See  the  curious  illustrations  in  James,  Principles  of  Psy- 
chology, Vol.  II,  p.  424.  Of  the  significance  of  the  instinct  of 
collection  for  economic  inquiries,  something  is  said  below, 
p.  80.  —  It  would  seem  that  the  instinct  of  the  chase,  atavistic 
though  it  is,  retains  in  man  most  closely  the  specific  scope 
which  it  has  in  animals  and  doubtless  had  in  primeval  man. 

[32] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

not  only  to  his  wider  intelligence  and  modi- 
fiability,  but  to  the  fact  that  their  specific 
direction  is  of  less  importance  for  his  welfare. 
Our  instincts  are  largely  survivals,  no  longer 
essential  for  our  place  in  the  organic  world. 
The  objects  to  which  they  are  directed  are 
not  commonly  of  immediate  importance  for 
our  well-being.  Hence  they  easily  take  on 
what  we  consider  an  "irrational"  character. 
They  are  apt  to  be  without  purpose,  in  the 
sense  that  they  serve  no  further  need  than 
that  of  giving  vent  to  the  sheer  impulse. 
So  it  is  with  the  whimsical  manifestations 
of  the  instinct  of  contrivance. 

Now  in  this  seething  mass  of  schemes  and 
experiments  a  process  of  selection  goes  on. 
The  failures  or  half  successes  of  inventors 
are  usually  overlooked;  it  is  the  crowning 
successes  which  alone  are  conspicuous.  In 
the  process  of  selection  two  closely  connected 
factors  seem  to  count :  the  support  and 
guidance  of  the  cool  and  calculating  business 
man,  and  the  cool  calculations  of  the  inventor 
himself. 

d  [33] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

y  The  part  played  by  the  business  man  — 
the  capitalist,  or  enterpriser,  or  manager, 
whatever  he  be  called  —  has  been  often 
discussed.  Every  invention,  we  are  told, 
needs  to  be  nursed.  Some  one  must  always 
advance  funds.  What  is  no  less  important, 
some  one  must  usually  supply  judgment.  A 
judicious  acquaintance  of  mine,  much  experi- 
enced in  the  world  of  affairs,  has  remarked 
to  me  that  an  inventor  is  always  a  ticklish 
associate,  —  unable  to  cease  experimenting, 
ever  in  chase  of  something  new,  subject  to 
ill-judged  enthusiasms,  not  content  to  sit 
down  and  develop  systematically  what  is 
at  the  stage  or  near  the  stage  of  working 
success.  Certain  it  is  that  your  inventor 
is  rarely  a  good  manager.  Cartwright,  as 
we  have  seen,  a  most  extraordinary  contriver, 
was  ever  at  something  new,  never  bringing 
anything  to  fruition.  James  Watt  needed 
his  partner  Boulton ;  alone,  Watt  could  never 
have  built  up  the  famous  Soho  works  or 
brought  the  steam  engine  to  full  effective- 
ness.    He    admitted    in    his    correspondence 

[34] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

that  he  was  immensely  interested  in  what 
he  himself  described  as  gimcracks  and 
hobbies.  The  business  of  perfecting  and 
installing  the  steam  engine  was  irksome 
to  him,  and  the  attentive  reader  of  his 
biography  cannot  but  see  that  he  was  held 
to  it  only  by  his  partnership  with  Boulton 
and  the  pecuniary  gain  which  came  thereby. 
Ericsson  was  in  financial  difficulties  through- 
out the  earlier  part  of  his  career;  the  firm 
with  which  he  began  as  partner  in  London  be- 
came bankrupt.  Some  of  the  most  ambitious 
projects  of  his  later  and  more  prosperous 
years  proved  complete  financial  failures. 
Such  was  the  case  with  the  oft-described 
u  caloric  ship"  which  bore  his  name,  and  in 
which  a  round  half-million  was  sunk.  The 
venture  of  the  paddle  steamer  Iron  Witch, 
quite  novel  in  type,  was  no  less  disastrous.1 
On  the  other  hand,  some  by-products  of  his 
fertile  brain  proved  to  be  unexpectedly  use- 
ful and  profitable.     He   experimented  for   a 

1  See  Church,  Life  of  Ericsson,  Vol.  I,  pp.  160,  189,  for 
these  episodes. 

[35] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

long  time  and  at  great  expense  on  an  engine 
for  utilizing  the  sun's  heat,  which  proved 
quite  impracticable ;  but  in  the  course  of  the 
experiments  contrived  the  small  hot-air  en- 
gine, from  which  he  and  his  business  partners 
eventually  drew  profits  offsetting  all  the 
heavy  expenses  of  the  abortive  solar  engine.1 
Other  inventions  and  designs  of  his  were 
also  turned  to  good  account  by  business 
associates,  and  with  their  aid  Ericsson  pros- 
pered. Yet  his  ways  were  harum-scarum  to 
the  end.     His  check  books  served  as  diaries 

1  "The  small  engine  here  referred  to  proved  a  great  success. 
Its  inventor  was  averse  to  patenting  it,  as  it  formed  part  of 
his  solar  apparatus ;  and  with  reference  to  this  he  had  said  in  a 
published  letter  dated  New  York,  September  23,  1870,  'I 
shall  not  apply  for  my  patent  rights,  and  it  is  my  intention  to 
devote  the  balance  of  my  professional  life  almost  exclusively 
to  its  completion.  Hence  my  anxiety  to  guard  against  legal 
obstructions  being  interposed  before  perfection  of  detail  shall 
have  been  measurably  attained.'  In  deference  to  the  re- 
quest of  his  business  associates,  the  inventor  reluctantly 
patented  its  application  to  the  use  of  hot  air,  and  without 
solicitation  gave  the  patent  right  to  his  business  associates  of 
the  firm  of  Delamater  &  Co.  Under  their  energetic  manage- 
ment it  was  speedily  brought  into  extensive  use."  —  Ibid., 
Vol.  II,  p.  273. 

[36] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

much  more  than  for  financial  record ;  and  at 
that,  they  were  the  only  records  he  kept. 
"It  was  difficult,"  says  his  biographer,  "to 
follow  his  financial  transactions,  as  the  memo- 
randa on  his  check  books  were  his  only  record 
of  money  received  or  coming  due  to  him. 
Yet  his  receipts  on  one  day  counted  a  single 
item  of  half  a  million  dollars  paid  in  ten 
$50,000  Treasury  certificates."  l 

Edison  —  to  turn  to  a  more  modern  case 
—  was  advised  at  an  early  stage  in  his  career 
to  get  a  partner;  advice  which  he  seems  to 
have  regarded  with  suspicion,  as  likely  to 
fasten  on  him  a  parasite.  Yet  one  cannot 
read  the  tale  of  his  business  stumblings 
without  concluding  that  he  would  have  ac- 
complished more,  certainly  prospered  more, 
with  a  capable  managing  partner  such  as 
Watt    had     in     Boulton.     Of    the    luckless 

1  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  157?  Vol.  II,  p.  307.  It  may  be  noted 
also  that  "he  was  one  of  the  first  investors  in  the  Atlantic 
telegraph,  but  he  always  wondered  at  himself  for  this  venture, 
as  he  was  ready  at  that  time  to  furnish  a  conclusive  demon- 
stration of  the  impossibility  of  making  the  cable  a  success." 
—Vol.  II,  p.  309. 

[37] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

New  Jersey  ore  venture  I  have  already 
spoken.  As  a  youth  of  twenty-one,  he  re- 
ceived his  first  check,  for  no  less  a  sum  than 
$40,000,  for  a  telegraphic  invention;  and 
the  paying  teller  of  the  bank  was  able  to 
play  a  practical  joke  on  him,  —  although  Edi- 
son had  already  been  in  business  ventures 
for  some  years,  —  by  handing  him  bundles  of 
small  bills  "until  there  certainly  seemed  to 
be  one  cubic  foot."  Several  years  later,  being 
offered  $100,000  for  an  invention,  he  volun- 
tarily preferred  to  take  the  sum  in  successive 
payments  of  $6000  a  year  spread  over  seven- 
teen years,  —  quite  oblivious  of  the  item  of  in- 
terest. And  still  later  he  accepted  an  offer  by 
cable  of  "30,000"  for  another  contrivance,  and 
was  surprised,  when  his  draft  came,  that  it 
was  for  £30,000,  —  he  had  expected  dollars.1 
The  truth  is,  —  and  it  bears  on  many 
phases  of  the  present  discussion,  —  that  no 
one  individual  is  likely  to  possess  to  a  high 
degree  different  kinds  of  capacity.  The  me- 
\  chanical  genius  is  not  likely  to  be  also  a 

1  Dyer  and  Martin,  Life  of  Edison,  pp.  133, 180, 185. 
[38] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

shrewd  judge,  a  capable  organizer  and  man- 
ager. Exceptions  there  are,  and  some  of 
them  notable.  The  elder  Stephenson  was 
a  successful  inventor  and  also  a  successful 
business  man.1  Werner  Siemens  belongs  in 
a  rank  even  higher,  —  a  leader  in  science  as 
well  as  in  business  and  in  mechanical  con- 
trivance. Among  Americans,  Bigelow,  who 
devised  power  looms  for  carpet  weaving,  and 
Batchelder,  who  did  much  for  the  cotton 
manufacture  in  its  earlier  stages,  were  in- 
dustrial leaders  of  high  ability.2    Yet  excep- 

1  It  will  be  remembered  that  Stephenson  and  Ericsson 
competed  at  the  famous  Rainhill  locomotive  competition  of 
1829.  Ericsson's  biographer  remarks :  "In  the  field  of  loco- 
motive construction  Ericsson  was  distanced  by  the  more 
steady-going,  if  less  brilliant,  Stephenson,  whose  labors, 
concentrated  upon  the  work  of  improving  and  adapting, 
were  not  disturbed  by  the  constant  buzzing  of  inventive  con- 
ceits." —  Church,  Life,  p.  67. 

2  See  Werner  Siemens,  Lebenserrinerungen  (1895) .  —  Samuel 
Batchelder  and  E.  B.  Bigelow  are  interesting  figures  in  the 
history  of  the  American  textile  industries.  Batchelder  wrote 
an  excellent  little  book,  The  Introduction  and  Progress  of 
the  Cotton  Manufacture  in  the  United  States  (1863).  Bigelow 
was  the  author  of  an  effective  statement  of  the  protectionist 
argument,  The  Tariff  Question  (1865). 

[39] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

tions  these  remain.  Commonly  the  inventor 
is  a  poor  manager.  It  is  when  allied  with 
the  business  man  that  he  is  most  likely  to 
develop  and  perfect  the  usable  devices. 
Now  your  business  man  is  all  for  profit, 
—  just  how  and  why,  we  shall  consider 
presently.  In  his  case  the  pecuniary  mo- 
■■i  tive  is,  proximately  at  least,  the  dominant 
one;  and  it  acts  to  direct,  temper,  make 
serviceable,  the  inventor's  more  impulsive 
nature.1 

1  A  recent  writer  on  textile  industries  is  led  by  his  ex- 
perience to  speak  thus  of  inventors:  "The  average  man  of 
creative  genius  is  not  as  methodical  as  he  should  be.  The 
reasons  for  this  are  that  his  work  is  fascinating  beyond  ex- 
pression. Ideas  flash  through  his  brain  with  such  rapid  suc- 
cession that  his  mind  is  restless  and  captivated.  He  lives  in 
the  whirlwinds  of  expectancy.  To-day  he  lives  with  ideas 
that  coin  wealth  so  fast  that  his  expected  riches  may  be  too 
bulky.  To-morrow  he  discovers  obstacles  that  are  insur- 
mountable and  his  proposed  wealth  vanishes.  With  the 
mind  so  actively  engaged  in  drawing  out  order  from  chaos, 
developing  ideas  into  material  form,  and  the  form  being 
changed  continually  before  assuming  the  normal  stage,  it 
is  exceedingly  difficult  for  the  inventor  to  have  complete 
records  and  have  hard  set  rules  and  methods  with  which  to 
govern  his  movements." — Martin,  The  Management  of  Cotton 
Mills,  p.  218. 

[40] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

The  alliance  of  the  inventor  with  the  busi- 
ness man  in  command  of  capital  is  probably 
more  important  now  than  in  older  days, 
because  of  the  increasing  complexity  and 
cost  of  modern  devices.  Some  of  the  most 
striking  improvements  of  our  time  have  come 
about  only  by  the  systematic  engagement 
and  maintenance  of  inventors;  there  are 
those  who  would  call  it  also  the  exploitation 
of  inventors.  Deliberate  and  systematic  di- 
rection of  inventors  appears  in  the  case  of  the 
automatic  loom,  on  which  the  energies  of  a 
whole  chain  of  contrivers  were  concentrated 
for  a  decade  or  more,  under  the  direction  and 
at  the  expense  of  the  enterprising  Draper  firm. 
Such  was  the  history  of  the  linotype,  a  most 
intricate  and  expensive  machine,  developed 
through  the  support  of  D.  O.  Mills.1  Simi- 
lar is  the  more  recent  history  of  the  Diesel 

1  From  conversation  and  correspondence  with  those  who 
had  to  do  with  this  invention  I  gather  that  its  history  was  like 
that  of  others.  Mergenthaler,  whose  name  is  attached  to 
the  linotype,  was  an  erratic  character.  The  financial  re- 
sources necessary  for  full  development  were  not  secured  until 
the  mechanism  had  been  in  essentials  perfected. 

[41] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

motor,  whose  possibilities  for  the  future  of 
power-generating  may  prove  immense.  In 
all  such  cases,  there  must  be  not  only  the 
instinct  of  contrivance,  but  its  systematic 
direction,  its  calculated  aim. 

f  Further :  the  inventor  himself  may  be 
spurred  directly  and  immediately  by  the 
prospect  of  pecuniary  gain.  The  direction 
of  his  energies  may  be  determined  by  this 
prospect.  I  turn  again  to  an  episode  in 
Edison's  career.  It  is  related  that  his  first 
invention  was  of  a  device  for  registering 
promptly  and  automatically  the  votes  of  a 
legislative  body.  Each  member  had  only 
to  press  a  button,  and  in  a  jiffy  the  count  pro 
or  con  would  be  recorded.  The  proud  young 
inventor  gave  a  successful  demonstration 
before  a  committee  of  the  national  House; 
but  an  experienced  legislator  poured  cold 
water  on  his  enthusiasm  with  the  remark : 
"Young  man,  if  there  is  any  invention  on 
earth  that  we  don't  want  down  here,  it  is 
this.  One  of  the  greatest  weapons  in  the 
hands  of  a  minority  to  prevent^pad  legis- 

[42] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

lation  is  filibustering  on  votes,  and  this 
instrument  would  prevent  it."  And,  as  the 
biographer  tells  us,  —  he  was  Edison's  close 
associate  and  derived  his  information  from 
the  inventor  himself,  —  "Edison  determined 
from  that  time  forth  to  devote  his  inventive 
faculties  only  to  things  for  which  there  was  a 
real,  genuine  demand,  something  that  sub- 
served the  actual  necessities  of  humanity."  x 
And  it  must  be  added  that  throughout  his 
subsequent  career,  clear  as  it  is  that  the  man 
was  possessed  with  an  instinct  for  contrivance, 
he  also  never  was  indifferent  to  money.  All 
his  inventions  were  patented;  no  pretense 
is  made  in  his  biography  that  pecuniary 
return  was  immaterial.  True,  the  pecuniary 
management  seems  often  to  have  been  bad. 
Had  Edison  been  a  great  business  manager 
as  well  as  a  great  inventor,  his  fortune  might 
have  overtopped  even  the  most  amazing 
known  to  us.     But  it  seems  to  have  been 

1  Life  of  Edison,  p.  103.  It  deserves  to  be  remarked  that 
from  that  day  to  this  all  attempts  to  introduce  devices  for 
rapid  counting  in  Congress  have  met  with  failure. 

[43] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

lack  of  pecuniary  ability,  not  the  absence  of 
pecuniary  motive,  which  caused  him  to  rank 
only  among  the  common  ruck  of  millionaires. 
The  biographies  of  other  inventors  abound 
in  similar  evidence.  James  Watt  had,  as  we 
have  seen,  all  kinds  of  projects,  good  and 
bad ;  but  he  was  much  concerned  about 
securing  the  patent  for  the  improved  steam 
engine,  even  though  he  found  it  irksome  to  give 
it  undivided  attention.  It  was  the  partner- 
ship with  Boulton  that  enabled  him  to  reap 
the  expected  and  desired  fortune.  Fulton 
also  was  a  most  versatile  person,  and  appar- 
ently no  more  sagacious  than  Edison  or  Watt 
in  his  choice  of  contrivances.  For  years 
he  gave  much  time  and  labor  to  sundry  hope- 
lessly impractical  schemes.  One  was  for  small 
canals  with  absurd  hoisting  arrangements 
as  substitutes  for  locks.  Another  was  the 
more  famous  submarine  boat,  equally  impos- 
sible in  the  then  stage  of  the  arts.  It  was 
a  lucky  turn  of  fortune  that  enabled  him  to 
sell  for  a  good  round  sum  to  the  frightened 
British  Admiralty  his  plans  for  submarines 

[44] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

and  torpedoes.  He  turned  to  the  steamboat 
next,  and  with  the  support  of  the  enterprising 
and  calculating  Livingston  succeeded  in  bring- 
ing the  Clermont  into  working  order.  "It 
cannot  be  denied/'  says  his  latest  biographer, 
"that  he  ever  neglected  an  opportunity  of 
profiting  pecuniarily  by  his  inventions."  l 
I  will  not  multiply  examples.  A  writer  on 
the  comparatively  prosaic  subject  of  textile 
machinery  and  its  improvement  remarks : 
"The  deep  interest  and  fascination  with 
which  the  faithful  inventor  is  overtaken  as 
he  proceeds  with  his  developments  repay  to 
a  considerable  extent.  But  the  hope  of  a 
well-earned  fortune  is  the  greatest  compen- 
sation sought."  2 

As  we  descend  in  the  scale  of  inventors 
and  contrivers,  the  instinct,  so  powerful 
among  those  of  the  first  rank,  becomes  less 
dominant,  and  other  traits  and  impulses 
become  of  comparatively  greater  influence. 
It   is   overmastering,    and   perhaps   for   that 

1  Dickinson,  Life  of  Fulton,  p.  267. 

2  Martin,  The  Management  of  Cotton  Mills,  p.  212. 

[45] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

very  reason  aberrant,  only  in  the  inventors 
who  have  genius,  —  men  like  Watt,  Cart- 
wright,  Ericsson,  Edison.  Though  still  strong 
in  those  of  less  distinction,  such  as  the  common 
run  of  textile  contrivers  just  referred  to,  it 
loses  its  imperious  character  and  becomes 
intermingled  more  closely  with  the  other 
impulses  of  the  species.  In  the  men  of 
secondary  rank  it  is  more  sober  and  more 
plodding,  directed  to  a  smaller  number  and 
less  variety  of  contrivances.  For  that  very 
reason  it  is  apparently  less  in  need  of  control 
and  direction  by  the  calculating  business 
man.  But  if  it  is  less  erratic  in  them,  it  is 
also  less  spontaneous,  and  depends  for  its 
persistence  and  fruition  more  on  the  ulterior 
motives  which  we  associate  with  money- 
making.  I  adduce  once  more  the  case  of 
Morse,  the  inventor  of  the  telegraph  and  of 
the  Morse  alphabet;  an  ingenious  and  suc- 
cessful contriver,  but  not,  like  Cartwright 
and  Edison,  fairly  bubbling  over  with  proj- 
ects. He  may  be  said  to  have  taken  to  in- 
vention  of   set   purpose.     Until   middle   life 

[46] 


r 

THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

he  was  a  painter  of  some  promise.  He  gave 
up  the  artist's  profession  because  he  found 
it  impossible  to  secure  orders  enough  to 
support  his  family.  The  crushing  disappoint- 
ment came  from  his  failure  to  get  an  order 
for  one  of  the  supposedly  monumental  paint- 
ings in  the  Capitol  at  Washington.  That 
failure  proved  in  the  end  advantageous  for 
his  fame  and  fortune.  He  turned  deliber- 
ately to  the  telegraph,  for  which  a  scheme  had 
been  in  his  mind  for  years,  and  devoted  the 
rest  of  his  life  to  perfecting  it,  introducing 
it,  enlisting  pecuniary  and  legislative  sup- 
port. The  reader  will  find  in  his  recently 
published  biography,1  as  he  will  in  the  records 
of  other  inventors,  self-deceiving  utterances 
and  puzzling  problems  of  character.  Morse 
was  a  devout  believer,  and  thought  himself 
an  instrument  working  out  the  designs  of 
God.  But  after  the  fashion  of  other  believers, 
he  looked  well  to  his  patent  rights  and  had 
a  constant  eye  to  the  acquisition  of  a  for- 

xThe  Letters  and  Journals  of  S.  F.  B.  Morse,  edited  by 
E.  S.  Morse  (1914). 

[47] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

tune.  It  is  tolerably  clear  that  the  instinct 
of  contrivance  would  not  have  achieved  the 
telegraph  through  mere  spontaneity  of  oper- 
ation. And  so  it  doubtless  is  with  the  great 
mass  of  schemers  and  inventors.  The  in- 
stinct is  stronger  in  them  than  in  the  average 
man,  but  not  so  strong  as  in  the  few  of 
extraordinary  genius,  and  not  so  strong  as  to 
lead  to  sustained  endeavor  without  the  stimu- 
lus of  ulterior  gain. 

The  case,  in  truth,  is  almost  invariably  one 
of  mixed  motives.  That  very  Fulton  who 
bargained  so  shrewdly  in  selling  his  inventions, 
good  and  bad,  was  unquestionably  sincere, 
though  doubtless  exuberant  of  emphasis,  when 
he  wrote  :  "Although  the  prospect  of  personal 
emolument  has  been  some  inducement  to  me, 
yet  I  feel  infinitely  more  pleasure  in  reflecting 
on  the  immense  advantages  that  my  country 
will  draw  from  the  invention"  (of  the  steam- 
boat). Edison  had  the  same  mixed  feelings; 
further  complicated  by  an  influence  which 
has  become  of  growing  strength  in  modern 
times,  —  professional  pride  and  professional 
J  [48] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

recognition.  It  is  rare  that  a  man  feels  a 
single  impulse  so  strongly  that  the  others  are  *- 
pushed  aside  and  rendered  inoperative;  and  *■ 
it  is  rare  also  that  a  man  in  whom  one  trait  is 
highly  developed  manifests  a  similar  extreme  ^j 
with  any  other.  Among  the  instincts  which 
we  shall  presently  have  to  consider  is  one  quite 
neglected  by  the  older  economists  —  that  of 
j^mpathy?  devotion*-  public ._  spirit*  Like  the 
rest,  it  appears  with  overpowering  and  far- 
ranging  force  in  some  individuals;  in  others 
it  seems  to  be  confined  strictly  to  the  narrow 
range  of  the  domestic  affections.  Just  as 
very  few  men  are  both  capable  business 
managers  and  ingenious  inventors,  so  few 
are  at  the  same  time  ingenious  inventors 
and  exalted  altruists.  Some  twenty  years 
ago  a  university  professor  devised  a  method 
for  measuring  with  accuracy  the  content  of 
butter-fat  in  milk.  The  device,  if  patented, 
would  doubtless  have  yielded  him  a  very 
handsome  income.  The  inventor  gave  it 
freely  to  the  public,  saying  modestly  that  to 
do  so  was  but  part  of  his  duty  as  a  servant 
l  [49] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

of  the  people;  and  it  has  come  into  use  the 
world  over.  We  call  his  conduct  noble ;  but 
our  very  recognition  of  its  nobility  is  an  ad- 
mission of  its  rarity.  Those  who  have  the 
contriving  bent  show,  like  the  rest  of  us,  all 
degrees  of  public  spirit.  The  great  majority 
of  inventors,  like  the  great  majority  of 
common  humanity,  are  neither  grossly  selfish 
nor  highly  altruistic.  They  follow  ordinarily 
their  own  interest,  yet  they  get  satisfaction 
also  from  furthering  the  interests  of  others, 
even  from  furthering  the  vaguely  felt  interests 
of  the  wide  circle  of  mankind.  It  is  too 
obvious  for  denial  that  the  closer  interests  of 
self  and  of  those  felt  to  be  parts  of  ourselves 
usually  surpass  in  directness  and  force  the 
wider  appeal. 

To  sum  up :  the  direction  in  which  the 
contriver  turns  his  bent  is  immensely  affected 
by  the  prospect  of  gain  for  himself.  Now, 
gain  and  profit  come  from  supplying  people 
with  what  they  want;  and  the  influ- 
ence of  individual  interest  on  the  direction 
of   inventors'   activity   turns   it   toward   the 

[50] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

promotion  of  the  general  welfare.  We  have 
moved  so  far  from  the  optimism  expressed 
in  Adam  Smith's  famous  passages  about  the 
invisible  hand l  as  to  forget  that  men  do  com- 
monly profit  most  by  supplying  what  other 
men  most  want.  The  defenders  of  patent 
legislation  often  descant  on  the  public's  benefit 
from  inventions  as  if  there  were  a  special 
moral  desert  on  the  part  of  the  projectors 
and  patentees.  They  put  their  case  badly. 
What  deserves  emphasis  is  the  influence  of 
calculated  profit  in  directing  the  inventor's 
activity,  spontaneous  though  it  be,  into  chan- 
nels of  general  usefulness. 

The  recognition  of  the  instinct  of  contriv- 
ance thus  does  not  lead  to  conclusions  as 
revolutionary  as  seem  on  first  consideration 

1  To  quote  again  the  oft-quoted  passage :  The  individual 
"generally,  indeed,  neither  intends  to  promote  the  public 
interest,  nor  knows  how  much  he  is  promoting  it.  .  .  .  By 
directing  his  industry  in  such  manner  as  its  produce  may  be 
of  the  greatest  value,  he  intends  only  his  own  gain,  and  he  is 
in  this,  as  in  many  other  cases,  led  by  an  invisible  hand  to 
promote  an  end  which  was  no  part  of  his  intention."  —  Wealth 
of  Nations,  Book  IV,  Ch.  II  (Vol.  I,  p.  421  of  Cannan's  edition). 

[51] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

to   be    indicated.     There  is,  beyond    doubt, 
I  contrivance  for  the  mere  sake  of  contrivance. 
*But  the  patent   system   is  nevertheless  not 
"deprived   of   justification,   nor   is   the   whole 
system  of  competitive  enterprise  of  which  it 
forms   a   part.     The   calculation   of   ulterior 
gain  still  plays  a  great  part,  usually  a  dominant 
part,  not  only  in  securing  the  guidance  and 
cooperation  of  the  business  manager,  but  in 
stimulating  and  directing  the  less  deliberate 
and  systematic  activity  of  the  inventor  him- 
self. 

This  is  the  case,  at  all  events,  under 
the  existing  social  organization,  in  which 
every  man,  whatever  his  bent,  is  constantly 
under  the  sway  of  the  narrower  self -regarding 
motives.  The  whole  structure  of  private 
property  is  built  on  the  foundation  of  a  striv- 
ing for  one's  own.  Inventors,  poets,  painters, 
business  men,  —  all  are  alike  in  the  folds  of  a 
system  which  compels  them  to  exercise  their 
powers  for  their  own  advantage.  The  fact 
that  the  instinct  of  contrivance  is  at  present 
turned  to  advantageous  exercise  by  the  motives 

[52] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

of  material  gain  does  not  prove  that  such 
motives  are  indispensable  to  the  same  sort 
of  usefulness  under  any  and  every  economic 
system.  Looked  at  in  this  way,  the  particular 
problem  of  the  preceding  discussion  is  but  part 
of  the  wider  problem  of  human  motivation, 
which  is  at  the  root  of  the  controversy  be- 
tween collectivism  and  individualism.  And 
in  the  larger  problem,  as  in  the  more  restricted 
one,  the  doings  of  the  tribe  of  inventors  must 
be  considered  in  connection  with  those  of  their 
patrons  and  partners,  the  capitalist  business 
men.  The  most  that  can  be  laid  down,  as 
the  outcome  of  the  present  discussion,  is 
that  inventors  on  the  whole  need  the  spur 
of  profit  as  much  as  the  others  whose  creative 
and  guiding  activity  is  indispensable  for 
human  progress.  But  how  much  do  they 
need  it,  one  and  all  ?  The  most  conspicuous 
figure  among  them,  and  in  the  field  of  eco- 
nomics the  most  important,  is  the  business 
leader.  Concerning  this  personage,  psycho- 
logical analysis  is  needed  quite  as  much  as  con- 
cerning the  inventor ;   and  some  such  analysis 

[53] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

is  undertaken  in  the  later  parts  of  the  present 
inquiry.  So  far  as  concerns  inventors  and 
contrivers,  our  conclusion  is  simply  that,  the 
social  and  economic  structure  being  what  it  is 
now,  and  men  being  now  under  its  influence, 
they  are  not  likely  to  exert  their  powers  for 
the  general  good  unless  guided,  stimulated, 
and  rewarded  in  much  the  same  way  as 
leaders  in  other  forms  of  creative  activity. 


[54] 


II 

The  Instinct  of   Contrivance,   Further 
Considered 

Our  attention  so  far  has  been  directed  to 
the  conspicuous  manifestations  of  the  con- 
triving instinct,  to  its  nature  and  influence 
among  the  gifted  inventors.  But,  like  the 
other  instincts,  it  is  to  be  discerned  in  all  men, 
and  actuates  all  in  some^degree.  In  consider- 
ing its  wider  range,  we  are  brought  face  to 
face  with  aspects  of  the  subject  which  lie 
even  further  from  the  range  of  topics  usually 
considered  by  the  economists. 

The  moral  teacher  tells  us  we  should  do  our 
daily  work  with  joy.  The  economist  com- 
monly tells  us  that  it  is  an  effort  undergone 
because  compensated  by  wages  or  profits, 
a  "disutility,"  a  sacrifice.  Underlying  almost 
all  economic  theory  is  the  assumption  that 
work  is  an  irksome  thing,  done  for  pay  and  in 

[551 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

proportion  to  pay.  And  however  the  preacher 
may  exhort  us  to  take  satisfaction  in  doing 
useful  work,  the  general  attitude  of  mankind 
confirms  that  of  the  economist :  work  is 
work,  and  quite  different  from  play.  It  is 
obvious  that  the  sum  of  human  happiness 
would  be  immensely  greater  if  all  could  feel 
as  the  preacher  would  wish,  if  all  commonly 
took  direct  satisfaction  in  the  activities  of 
earning  a  living. 

I  would  not  venture  on  any  general  theoriz- 
ing on  the  problem  of  happiness.  For  the 
present  discussion  it  suffices  to  point  to  the 
patent  fact  that  the  satisfaction  of  an  instinct 
conduces  pro  tanto  to  happiness,  the  balking 
of  it  to  unhappiness.  Not  indeed  for  all 
instincts  in  the  same  degree,  or  with  the  same 
ultimate  consequences.  Some  need  to  be  held 
in  check,  alike  for  the  individual's  well-being 
and  for  that  of  his  fellows ;  some  may  be  given 
full  rein.  Among  those  to  which  it  seems 
possible  to  give  wide  scope,  without  danger 
of  satiation  or  remorse,  is  this  one  of  con- 
trivance.    And  yet  the  modern  organization 

[56] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

of  industry  tends  to  smother  it  in  a  great 
and  probably  growing  proportion  of  men,  — 
a  most  ominous  aspect  of  our  social  and  eco- 
nomic system. 

I  have  mentioned  that  among  the  marks  of 
a  true  instinct  is  universality  of  occurrence. 
That  of  contrivance  is  verified  by  the  test. 
Extraordinary  as  it  is  in  some  individuals,  it 
is  present  in  all.  In  the  average  man  it 
perhaps  should  be  called  an  instinct  of  con- 
struction rather  than  one  of  contrivance. 
Every  one  of  us  is  conscious  of  a  satisfaction 
in  doing  his  work  handily  and  well,  in  seeing 
the  product  grow  under  his  own  hands. 

Hence  we  find  this  instinct  actuating  the 
business  man  as  well  as  the  inventor  and 
mechanic.  The  complexity  of  the  impulses 
and  motives  which  underlie  business  activity 
will  form  the  special  topic  of  the  following 
chapters ;  here  I  anticipate  for  a  moment 
what  might  as  appropriately  be  said  there, 
concerning  the  influence  of  the  instinct  of  con- 
trivance on  the  active  man  of  affairs.  This 
sort  of  person  likes  to  see  his  enterprise  well 

[57] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

conducted ;  and  the  enjoyment  is  quite  apart 
from  the  money-making  outcome.  As  with 
other  instincts,  that  of  contrivance  is  felt  in 
varying  force  by  different  individuals.  There 
are  not  many  with  whom  it  would  be  as  strong 
as  with  a  manufacturer  who  once  assured  me 
(in  perfect  good  faith,  I  am  convinced)  that 
the  chief  satisfaction  which  he  got  from  his 
establishment  was  the  feeling  that  it  was  in 
the  best  of  order  and  at  the  height  of  efficiency, 
—  shipshape  from  top  to  bottom.  But  the 
immense  majority  would  confess  to  some  feel- 
ing of  intrinsic  pleasure  in  having  a  well- 
equipped  plant,  a  first-rate  organization.  I 
mention  organization  as  well  as  plant,  be- 
cause the  modern  business  man  is  commonly 
concerned  with  the  former  not  less  than  the 
latter.  The  instinct  for  contrivance  is  then 
directed  to  the  demarcation  and  apportion- 
ment of  functions,  the  proper  division  of  ad- 
ministrative work,  the  mechanism  of  routing 
and  filing  and  cost-accounting.  And  it  is 
probable  that  here,  as  with  the  instinct  in 
its  more  obvious  phase,  —  that  of  mechanical 

[58] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

contrivance,  —  there  are  manifestations  which 
from  the  mere  pecuniary  point  of  view  are 
aberrant  or  irrational.  One  hears  of  pedan- 
tically perfected  organization,  of  a  sort  of 
scientific  management  run  wild,  for  which  the 
sponsor  would  find  it  difficult  to  give  a  good 
"business"  justification.1 

A  characteristic  illustration  of  the  influence 
of  the  contriving  instinct  is  found  in  the  pas- 
sion for  building  often  shown  by  the  well- 
established  and  successful  business  man.  I 
have  come  across,  in  my  own  acquaintance, 
sundry  cases  of  what  may  be  fairly  called  a 
building  mania.  The  man  who  has  accumu- 
lated a  fortune  is  apt  to  spend  freely  in  con- 

1  Sombart  (Der  Bourgeois,  p.  425)  refers  to  the  "childish 
pleasure"  which  the  business  man  takes  in  technical  per- 
fection. I  cannot  but  believe  that  this  sort  of  characteriza- 
tion is  as  superficial  as  that  which  {ibid.,  p.  222)  describes  the 
love  of  speed  as  "childish."  Such  manifestations  are  childish 
in  this  sense  only,  —  that  our  instincts  appear  with  greater 
simplicity  in  children  than  in  adults  and  are  more  easily 
recognizable  in  them.  The  instinct  of  contrivance  is  as 
normal  in  the  man  as  in  the  boy ;  and  the  "childish"  love  of 
speed  seems  to  be  but  a  manifestation  of  the  ubiquitous  and 
irrepressible  instinct  of  the  chase.  Cp.  what  is  said  below,  p.  90. 

[59] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

structing  an  establishment,  —  very  likely  a 
country  house,  with  dependent  structures 
and  appurtenances,  park-like  grounds,  and 
the  like.  When  the  whole  is  completed,  he 
makes  little  use  of  it  or  none ;  perhaps  hands 
it  over  to  a  friend  or  relative  for  occupancy,  or 
dutifully  makes  an  occasional  pretense  of 
enjoying  it  himself.  Given  money  enough,  he 
is  likely  to  turn  before  long  to  another  opera- 
tion of  the  same  kind.  If  he  already  has  a 
house  by  the  sea,  he  builds  one  among  the 
hills  or  adds  an  elaborate  "camp"  in  distant 
wilds.  In  his  business  operations  the  instinct 
of  contrivance  is  held  in  some  restraint,  being 
guided  by  rationality,  or  by  an  accurate 
calculation  which  has  an  appearance  of  ra- 
tionality, for  the  purposes  of  money-making. 
But  when  the  money  is  made,  the  instinct 
shows  more  clearly  its  spontaneous  character. 
Who  has  not  heard  of  mansions  or  towers 
which  are  dubbed  "Smith's  Folly"?  Smith, 
if  he  were  cross-questioned  about  his  doings 
and  motives,  and  were  led  to  reflect  on  them, 
would  probably  confess  that  it  was  "folly." 

[60] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

But,  like  Edison,  he  had  his  "fun"  out  of  it! 
Not  the  completed  establishment  and  its 
uses  gave  him  pleasure,  but  the  contrivance 
and  the  construction. 

Much  more  important,  however,  is  the 
influence  of  the  instinct  of  contrivance  on  the 
employees.  It  is  more  important  as  concerns 
the  problem  of  happiness,  simply  because  of 
the  immense  numerical  preponderance  of  the 
employees  over  employers.  There  is  a  clear 
difference  between  the  two  classes  as  regards 
the  scope  given  to  this  bent  in  their  work. 
The  capitalistic  organization  of  industry, 
large-scale  production,  hired  labor,  and  the 
wages  system,  —  these  may  serve  to  add  to 
the  employer's  intrinsic  satisfaction  from  his 
daily  work,  or  at  least  to  entail  no  loss  of 
satisfaction ;  but  they  seem  to  lessen  seriously 
the  possibilities  of  a  life  of  spontaneous 
activity  and  of  sustained  happiness  for  the 
manual  workmen  who  form  the  great  body  of 
employees. 

Just  how  far  the  development  of  quasi- 
automatic   machinery   runs   counter   to   this 

[61] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

factor  in  well-being  is  not  easy  to  say.  Prob- 
ably the  charge  often  urged,  that  it  takes  all 
the  interest  and  savor  out  of  the  day's  work, 
is  exaggerated ;  or  at  least  there  is  exaggera- 
tion in  the  assertion  that  the  industrial  system 
is  in  this  regard  radically  worse  than  it  was 
before  the  era  of  the  machine.  The  handi- 
craftsman's labor,  like  that  of  the  tender 
of  a  machine,  often  involves  repetition  and 
monotony.  Moreover,  a  vast  amount  of 
dreary  heavy  labor  has  been  taken  over  by 
the  machinery.  The  modern  sawmill  is  bet- 
ter than  the  old  saw  pit ;  the  planing  mill 
better  than  the  old  jack  plane.  There  is 
truth  also  in  the  observation  that  monotony 
is  by  no  means  equally  distasteful  to  all. 
Men  vary  in  this  regard,  as  in  every  other; 
and  the  simple  repetition  of  identical  move- 
ments is  not  necessarily  a  cause  of  weariness 
and  abhorrence  to  those  of  ingrtjnQind  and 
tranquil  disposition.1 

1  See  what  is  said  in  Mtinsterberg,  Psychology  and  Indus- 
trial Efficiency,  pp.  190,  195.  Cp.  Marshall,  Principles  of 
Economics^  Book  IV,  Ch.  IX,  p.  6. 

[62] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

Yet  it  remains  true  that  there  is  a  differ- 
ence of  degree  between  the  tool  and  the 
machine;  a  lessened  scope  for  individual 
initiative  and  individual  impress,  and  so  a 
lessened  opportunity  for  the  satisfaction  of 
an  instinct  like  that  of  contrivance.  True, 
the  expert  mechanics  needed  by  modern 
industry  — "a  considerable  part  of  the  labor 
force,  even  though  not  a  large  proportion  — 
may  still  be  in  the  way  of  experiencing  some 
such  satisfaction.  Among  the  rank  and  file 
of  factory  operatives,  also,  the  possibility  is 
not  completely  excluded ;  machines,  however 
perfect,  depend  in  some  degree  on  the  opera- 
tive's care  and  skill.  Yet  in  general  the 
minute  partition  of  labor,  the  extreme  differ- 
entiation of  machinery,  the  constant  effort  to 
achieve  automatic  start  and  check  and  action, 
the  tendency  to  reduce  the  worker  to  a  mere 
feeder  and  watcher,  —  all  these  mean  a  loss 
in  interest,  in  possible  variety,  in  the  exercise 
of  skill  and  contrivance.  The  skilled  me- 
chanics themselves,  whose  work  tends  to  be 
turned  to  the  construction  and  repair  and  over- 

[63] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

sight  of  machinery,  are  often  tenders  and 
users  of  machine  tools  which,  though  extraor- 
dinarily ingenious  and  effective,  are  quasi- 
automatic.  Surveying  the  situation  as  a 
whole,  the  decline  of  the  handicraft,  though  it 
does  not  necessarily  mean  a  less  demand  on 
the  intelligence  and  skill  of  the  workmen, 
means  less  opportunity  for  individual  adap- 
tation and  workmanship.  Against  the  clear 
gain  in  quantitative  output  from  machine 
industry,  so  much  emphasized  in  economic 
literature,  must  be  set  some  loss,  even 
though  not  an  unqualified  loss,  as  regards 
the  scope  and  the  attractiveness  of  the 
work   itself. 

But  it  is  in  other  directions  that  I  am  dis- 
posed to  think  that  there  is  the  most  serious 
evil.  The  evil  arises  not  only  from  these  in- 
evitable concomitants  of  large-scale  produc- 
tion and  highly  elaborated  machinery,  but 
from  the  relations  between  employers  and 
workmen  which  have  developed  from  them. 
It  is  rooted  in  the  wages  system  and  in  the 
wages  struggles  which  arise  from  that  system. 

[64] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

The  ordinary  wages  bargain  gives  the  em- 
ployer command  over  the  workman's  time  and 
energy  for  a  stated  period,  at  a  fixed  rate  of 
pay.  Where  the  number  of  employees  is 
small,  this  does  not  militate  against  a  feeling 
of  mutual  interest  and  good  will.  No  less 
important,  where  the  number  is  small,  and 
the  division  of  labor  not  minute,  is  the  greater 
possibility  of  variety  and  adaptability  in  the 
daily  tasks.  The  development  of  large-scale 
industry  tends  to  eliminate  both  of  these 
propitious  factors.  The  relations  between 
employer  and  employee  inevitably  become 
more  impersonal  and  mechanical.     The  work- 

\  man  is  no  longer  Bill  Jones;  he  becomes  a 
number  on  the  payroll.  From  it  all  emerges, 
or  at  least  there  is  accentuated,  an  attitude 
toward  work  quite  different  from  that  of  the 
independent  craftsman  or  of  the  companion- 
able workman  of  the   small-scale  employer. 

v   It  is  pay  that  is  chiefly  looked  to,  with  hardly 
a  thought  of  interest  in  the  product ;  employ- 
ment and  the  maintenance  of  the  job,  not 
achievement  and  the  interest  of  the  job. 
f  [65] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

All  this  is  too  sadly  familiar;  but  some  of 
its  consequences  are  perhaps  better  under- 
stood in  the  light  of  the  psychology  of  instinct. 
The  best  illustration  of  what  I  mean  appears 
in  labor -union  development  and  labor-union 
policy.  The  union  is  inevitable ;  in  the  bar- 
gainings between  employers  and  hired  work- 
men it  conduces  alike  to  the  material  gain  of 
the  workmen  and  to  their  self-respect.  Of  the 
various  good  and  bad  sides  of  the  movement 
we  hear  enough;  among  the  well-to-do,  per- 
haps more  than  enough  about  the  bad  sides. 
But  the  attitude  toward  work  bred  by  union 
policy  and  union  environment  brings  ill  con- 
sequences little  considered  either  by  the 
unionists  themselves  or  by  their  critics. 
"Making  work"  and  limitation  of  output 
are  familiar  features  in  current  labor  policy. 
They  have  been  subject  to  sufficiently  scath- 
ing criticism ;  nor  is  it  possible  to  defend  them 
on  any  large  grounds  of  social  policy.  I  am 
convinced  that  they  are  due,  not  so  much  to 
fallacies  in  reasoning  about  their  effect  on  the 
demand  for  labor  (though  these  play  a  consid- 

[661 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

erable  part)  as  to  the  ever  haunting  dread  of 
unemployment  and  the  stern  need  of  sharp 
bargaining  with  the  ordinary  employer. 
vj  Whatever  their  origin,  and  whatever  may  be 
said  in  their  justification  as  weapons  in  the 
fight  for  wages,  they  tend  to  smother  the  in- 
stinct of  construction  and  the  inherent  satis- 
faction from  work.  Can  anything  be  im- 
agined that  will  render  the  day's  labor  more 
repugnant  than  the  requirement  to  hold 
one's  self  in,  so  as  to  refrain  from  doing  one's 
best?  Anything  to  make  the  closing  gong 
more  welcome  than  the  obligation  to  limit 
achievement  below  capacity?  So  it  is  with 
the  opposition,  overt  or  concealed,  to  labor- 
saving  devices;  this  too  runs  counter  to  the 
inborn  bent  for  trying  to  do  the  thing  handily. 
Something  of  the  same  sort  is  true  of  piece- 
work, even  where  this  method  of  payment  is 
not  nullified  by  tacit  agreement  among  the 
men  to  keep  within  a  stated  output.  From 
the  employer's  point  of  view,  the  bane  of 
piecework  is  that  the  workman  has  no  in- 
ducement to  improve  quality  and  must   be 

[67] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

controlled  by  standardization  and  inspection. 
As  regards  the  workman's  own  happiness, 
it  means  indifference  to  quality,  an  induce- 
ment to  keep  barely  up  to  the  stated  standard. 
True,  mere  quantity  satisfies  to  some  degree 
the  instinct  of  contrivance,  or  at  all  events 
that  of  collection  and  accumulation.  There 
is  a  satisfaction  in  seeing  the  growth  of  your 
own  pile,  the  swelling  of  the  count  to  your 
own  credit.  But  even  this  is  too  often  pre- 
vented by  the  shortsighted  employer,  who 
watches  that  same  accumulation  with  envious 
eyes  and  tries  to  cut  down  the  piecework 
rate  because  "these  fellows  are  making  too 
much  money";  with  the  inevitable  retalia- 
tion on  the  workmen's  part  through  a  policy 
of  holding  in,  and  a  consequent  smothering 
of  the  spirit  of  activity. 

Again :  the  instinct  of  contrivance  in  the 
business  man  himself,  and  the  ready  vent  which 
is  given  it  by  the  nature  of  his  own  work, 
go  far  to  explain  his  inability  to  understand, 
his  unwillingness  to  tolerate,  the  restrictive 
policy  which  so  often  runs  counter  to  it  among 

[68] 


THE    INSTINCT    OF    CONTRIVANCE 

the  employees.  The  position  of  the  employer 
obviously  is  just  the  opposite  from  that  of 
the  men.  In  his  case  all  the  surrounding 
circumstances  tend  to  foster  and  strengthen 
the  contriving  impulse,  whereas  among  the 
men  the  accepted  methods  of  bargaining 
tend  to  push  it  aside  and  smother  it.  Not 
only  the  employer's  calculations  of  gain,  which 
are  doubtless  uppermost  in  his  thoughts,  but 
the  inborn  bent  of  which  he  is  only  half- 
conscious,  impel  him  to  bring  his  operations 
to  the  utmost  pitch  of  efficiency.  His  own 
satisfaction  from  proper  contriving  makes 
him  feel  irritation,  even  wrath,  when  his  men 
limit  their  tasks,  hold  aloof  from  labor-saving 
appliances,  prevent  the  well-designed  organi- 
zation and  plant  from  turning  out  the  maxi- 
mum. This  cause  of  friction  is  the  more 
likely  to  issue  in  contention  because  neither 
participant  understands  the  other's  point 
of  view;  nay,  neither  understands  his  own. 
The  employer  declares  that  the  men  are  fool- 
ish, ignorant,  act  against  their  own  interests, 
still  more  against  the  interests  of  the  public. 

[69] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

He  is  quite  alive  to  the  fact  (though  he  may 
not  overtly  lay  stress  on  it)  that  their  restric- 
tive policy  also  interferes  with  his  money- 
making.  But  he  is  probably  not  at  all  con- 
scious that  his  interest  in  the  money-making 
policy  is  supplemented  by  his  own  instinct 
of  contrivance.  The  men  on  their  part  are  as 
little  aware  that  they  are  opposing  something 
more  than  the  mere  business  plans  of  the  em- 
ployer, and  equally  little  aware  of  causing 
in  themselves  a  similar  sort  of  thwarting. 
The  wages  system  in  its  ordinary  form  in- 
hibits, in  this  respect  as  in  others,  the  normal 
operation  of  our  instincts  and  activities. 

It  is  with  some  sadness  that  I  state  my 
opinion  that  the  more  familiar  schemes  for 
remodeling  the  wages  system  promise  little 
relief  from  these  difficulties.  Cooperation 
by  workmen  might  indeed  immensely  in- 
crease the  chances  of  happiness  in  the  per- 
formance of  labor;  but  the  history  of  the 
movement  gives  little  promise  of  any  consid- 
erable control  of  industry  by  groups  of  self- 
governing  workmen.     Profit-sharing  proposes 

[70] 


THE    INSTINCT   OF   CONTRIVANCE 

too  dim  and  distant  a  connection  between  the 
man's  work  and  the  consequences  of  his  work. 
In  its  usual  form  it  is  after  all  a  crude  device, 
since  the  profits  in  which  the  workman  shares 
depend  but  remotely  and  uncertainly  on  his 
own  diligence  and  his  own  constructiveness. 
The  so-called  welfare  arrangements  are  apt 
to  be  patronizing  and  to  sap  the  self-respect 
of  the  employees,  and  in  any  case  offer  little 
to  overcome  the  particular  difficulties  here 
confronting   us, 

•n  the  other  hand,  there  seem  to  be  con- 
siderable possibilities  in  what  is  called  scien- 
tific management.  But  the  management 
must  be  not  only  scientific,  but  human.  The 
familiar  schemes  have  too  much  of  the  me- 
chanical and  non-human  element.  They  tend 
to  treat  the  worker  like  a  machine,  not  to 
develop  the  spontaneity  of  the  living  man. 
I  can  conceive  a  sympathetic  as  well  as  truly 
scientific  study  of  the  conditions  of  labor, 
of  the  apportionment  of  tasks  to  fit  the  bents 
of  the  various  kinds  of  men,  of  the  ways  of 
enlisting  the  workman's  instinctive  interest 

[71] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

in  what  he  does,  —  search  for  an  organiza- 
tion and  management  which  shall  at  once 
increase  the  productiveness  of  industry  and 
the  attractiveness  of  labor.  This  is  a  task 
more  difficult  than  that  of  the  usual  forms  of 
scientific  management,  and  also  more  in- 
spiring. And  with  it  must  go  training  of  the 
employer  as  well  as  of  the  employee.  The 
current  proposals  appeal  to  the  average 
employer  mainly  because  they  promise  to 
give  him  more  output  at  less  expense;  in 
part  also  because  they  promise  to  out- 
maneuver  the  trade-unionists.  For  these 
same  reasons  they  are  bitterly  opposed  by  the 
union  leaders  and  doubtless  also  by  the  rank 
and  file.  It  is  certain  that  such  maneuvers 
will  have  no  large  development  unless  quite 
honest  and  frank.  They  should  cooperate 
with  the  unions  instead  of  working  against 
them,  enlist  the  heartfelt  interests  of  the  men 
rather  than  make  a  suspicious  appeal  to  what 
seems  to  them  a  shortsighted  cupidity. 

There  are  other  aspects  of  this  problem  of 
infusing  interest  and  life  into  everyday  labor, 

[72] 


THE    INSTINCT   OF   CONTRIVANCE 

on  which  I  can  touch  only  in  the  briefest  way. 
Group  interest  and  group  emulation  are 
psychological  factors  of  no  mean  interest. 
The  employer  himself  feels  emulation;  he 
is  playing  the  game  on  his  own  account; 
therein  lies  no  small  part  of  the  attractive- 
ness of  his  work.  Perhaps  something  similar 
can  be  found  for  the  hired  employee.  An 
emulation  of  groups  within  the  factory,  and 
of  factory  with  factory,  could  conceivably 
be  made  to  give  zest  to  operations  otherwise 
devoid  of  attractiveness.1  Local  pride  is 
one  of  the  most  familiar  manifestations  of 

1  The  utilization  of  such  emulation  is  by  no  means  unknown 
among  business  managers.  The  United  States  Steel  Corpora- 
tion found  in  rivalry  between  its  different  plants  for  "a 
record  "  an  effective  spur  to  increase  of  output  and  so  to  diminu- 
tion of  expense;  see  Fitch,  The  Steel  Workers,  p.  186.  In 
the  construction  of  the  Panama  Canal  Colonel  Goethals 
put  the  army  engineers  in  charge  of  the  Atlantic  division  and 
the  civilian  engineers  in  charge  of  the  Pacific  division,  pub- 
lished the  steam-shovel  records,  and  thus  "hoped  to  arouse 
a  wholesome  rivalry  between  these  two  and  secure  better  re- 
sults both  in  time  and  money."  (Scribner's  Magazine, 
May,  1915,  p.  544.)  It  is  not  to  be  questioned,  I  think,  that 
rivalry  of  this  kind  not  only  "secures  better  results"  but  adds 
to  the  zest  of  the  men's  work. 

[73] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

the  gregarious  and  emulative  instincts,  and 
can  be  aroused  over  matters  important  as 
well  as  trivial.  Certain  it  is  that  an  attitude 
of  cooperation  and  sympathy  with  one's  as- 
sociates, whether  they  be  leaders  or  equals, 
contributes  immensely  to  the  satisfaction  from 
tasks  jointly  undertaken. 

A  broad  and  enlightened  policy  on  the  lines 
here  sketched  seems  to  me  quite  within  the 
bounds  of  practicability.  Whether  it  is  not 
only  practicable,  but  also  probable  of  adop- 
tion, I  would  not  venture  to  say.  The  aver- 
age employer  is  a  narrow-minded  person,  well- 
informed  and  thoughtful  only  about  the  small 
circle  of  his  routine  business  operations.  Too 
commonly  he  thinks  of  his  employees  as  mere 
pieces  of  usable  mechanism,  not  as  human 
beings.  The  suspicions  and  prejudices  of  the 
workmen,  engendered  by  their  own  narrow- 
mindedness  and  strengthened  by  bitter  ex- 
periences, contribute  in  turn  to  a  mechanical 
relation  between  masters  and  men.  Yet  it  is 
only  by  allaying  these  suspicions,  by  temper- 
ing these  prejudices,  that  any  progress  can 

[74] 


THE    INSTINCT   OF   CONTRIVANCE 

be  made  toward  an  industrial  organization 
which  shall  not  smother  the  natural  instincts 
and  shall  promote  with  fuller  effect  the  final 
aim  of  industry,  —  the  happiness  of  life.1         V/ 

1  On  the  topics  touched  with  such  brevity  in  these  para- 
graphs I  refer  to  the  stimulating  discussion  in  J.  A.  Hobson, 
Work  and  Wealth  (1914).  See  also  the  excellent  though 
fragmentary  remarks  of  Wallas  in  The  Great  Society, 
Ch.  XIII. 


[75] 


Ill 

The  Psychology  of  Money-making 

The  text  for  the  following  discussion  may 
be  taken  again  from  one  of  the  British  writers 
belonging  to  what  may  be  called  the  canonical 
school.  N.  W.  Senior,  perhaps  the  most 
scholarly  and  broad-minded  among  them, 
took  pains  to  consider  what  were  the  prem- 
ises from  which  he  and  his  contemporaries 
reasoned;  and  he  stated  four  "general  prop- 
ositions" on  which  the  science  of  political 
economy  was  supposed  to  rest.  The  first- 
mentioned  among  them  was  "that  every  man 
desires  to  obtain  additional  wealth  with  as 
,  little  sacrifice  as  possible."  This,  like  the  other 
general  propositions,  "is  in  Political  Economy 
what  gravitation  is  in  Physics  .  .  .  the  ulti- 
mate fact  beyond  which  reasoning  cannot  go." 

Now  this  proposition,  which  Senior  thought 
a  mere  "matter  of  consciousness,"  seems  to 

[76] 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    MONEY-MAKING 

the  modern  observer,  even  though  he  be  no 
psychologist,  not  at  all  a  matter  of  conscious- 
ness, still  less  a  matter  of  course.  It  is  by 
no  means  obvious  that  all  men  desire  to  obtain 
additional  wealth.  On  the  contrary,  there 
are  whole  races  among  whom  satiety  is  reached 
at  what  may  seem  to  the  artificialized  modern 
man  a  very  early  stage ;  races  whose  members 
cease  to  labor  when  a  few  simple  wants  have 
been  gratified,  and  care  for  no  additional 
wealth  even  if  it  can  be  got  with  but  the 
slightest  sacrifice.  And  among  the  advanced 
races  themselves  there  is  a  very  large  propor- 
tion of  persons,  not  only  among  the  manual 
laborers,  but  among  the  property-accumulat- 
ing members  of  the  prosperous  classes,  whose 
wants  are  simple  and  limited,  to  whom  leisure 
and  relaxation  appeal  quite  as  much  as 
additional  wealth. 

What  perhaps  is  true  is  that  a  small  circle 
of  persons,  especially  among  modern  peoples  of 
Western  civilization,  manifest  an  insatiable 
desire  for  additional  wealth.  Among  them 
the  trait  is  most  of  all  characteristic  of  the 

[771 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

capitalist  business  man,  —  the  nearest  ap- 
proach to  the  "economic  man"  of  older  litera- 
ture. This  is  the  figure  that  dominates  modern 
society,  directs  its  energies,  gives  the  tone 
to  the  small  controlling  set  of  employers 
and  property  owners.  Of  such  a  person  it 
may  be  true  that  he  wants  ever  more  wealth 
and  still  more;  and  he  communicates  the 
same  state  of  mind  to  all  who  have  ambition 
or  hope  to  enter  the  charmed  circle  of  the 
affluent  and  externally  distinguished. 

Yet  even  among  the  business  men  —  I  use 
this  familiar  term  instead  of  speaking  of 
"undertakers,"  "enterprisers,"  "capitalists," 
and  what  not,  —  there  is  no  one  simple  desire 
or  impulse.  The  wish  for  additional  wealth, 
so  far  as  it  appears  at  all,  is  a  most  complex 
psychological  phenomenon,  the  resultant  of  a 
number  of  instincts  or  dispositions,  of  which 
the  possessor  himself  is  only  half-conscious. 
Of  this  complexity  Senior  himself  was  not 
unaware ;  but  the  origin  and  make-up  of  the 
desire  seemed  to  him  a  matter  beyond  the 
scope  of  economic  inquiry,  and  at  all  events 

[78] 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    MONEY-MAKING 

not  likely  to  point  to  any  conclusions  of  signif- 
icance for  the  economist.  The  modern  econ- 
omist feels  differently.  The  psychological 
analysis  not  only  gratifies  his  intellectual 
curiosity,  but  promises  to  give  aid  in  under- 
standing economic  phenomena  and  in  direct- 
ing economic  policy. 

The  special  topic  to  which  we  may  give 
attention,  then,  is  the  motivation  of  the  busi- 
ness man.  For  this  purpose  the  following 
among  the  instincts  recognized  by  the  psy- 
chologists seem  to  deserve  attention.  First, 
the  instinct  of  contrivance  or  construction;^ 
second,  that  of  acquisition  or  accumulation ; 
third,  that  of  domination;  fourth,  perhaps 
not  to  be  classed  as  a  separate  instinct,  and 
certainly  not  separate  from  the  others  in  its 
operation,  that  of  emulation;  and  fifth, 
that  of  sympathy,  altruism,  or  devotion. 
These  may  be  considered  in  the  order  named ; 
it  being  premised  that  the  order  is  taken 
chiefly  for  convenience  in  exposition,  not 
because  indicative  of  the  relative  strength  or 
importance  of  the  several  impulses. 

[79] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

Of  contrivance  I  have  already  spoken. 
Doubtless  it  is  not  among  the  more  powerful 
of  the  impulses  that  stir  the  man  of  affairs; 
though  surely  not  to  be  neglected.  Probably  it 
is  of  greater  significance  as  concerns  the  rela- 
tions between  employer  and  employee  than  for 
the  understanding  of  the  psychological  charac- 
teristics of  the  employer  himself.  Without  en- 
deavoring to  add  to  what  has  been  said  on  this 
topic  in  the  preceding,  I  will  proceed  to  the  con- 
sideration of  the  other  instincts  enumerated. 

Second  on  our  list  is  acquisition,  collection, 
ownership.  My  brilliant  and  lamented  col- 
league, the  late  Professor  James,  pointed  out 
how  it  could  be  turned  to  account  by  teachers. 
They  should  enlist  and  guide  the  collecting 
bent  among  their  pupils ;  and  he  remarked  in- 
cidentally that  "the  depth  and  primitiveness 
of  this  instinct  would  seem  to  discredit  in  ad- 
vance all  radical  forms  of  communistic  utopia. 
Private  property  cannot  be  practically  abol- 
ished   until    human    nature    is    changed."  ! 

1  Wm.  James,  Talks  on  Psychology  to  Teachers,  p.  51. 
Graham  Wallas  {Human  Nature  in  Politics,  p.  36)  thinks 

[80] 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    MONEY-MAKING 

Other  thinkers  have  recognized  the  existence 
of  a  true  instinct  for  ownership ;  and  even 
though  they  might  have  no  prepossessions 
in  favor  of  private  property,  they  have  noted 
that  the  socialists,  so  far  as  they  propose  to 
do  away  with  ownership  entirely,  run  counter 
to  a  strong  and  universal  trait. 

Nevertheless,  I  am  skeptical  of  the  existence 
of  an  instinct  of  ownership  as  such;  and  at 
all  events  I  am  very  doubtful  whether  this 
plays  any  special  part  in  the  psychology  of 
the  business  man.  What  the  biological  anal- 
ogies suggest  is  collection  rather  than  owner-  — - 
ship.  An  instinct  for  gathering  food  is  to 
be  found  among  all  sorts  of  animals,  —  in- 
sects, birds,  mammals.  The  dog,  even  though 
he  be  an  overfed  pet,  buries  his  bone  in  obedi- 
ence to  a  trait  inherited  from  his  wild  ancestor. 
The  instinct  is  unmistakable  among  children, 
to  whose  behavior  we  look  for   evidence   of 

"there  are  good  grounds  for  supposing  this  [the  desire  for  / 
property]  is  a  true  specific  instinct,  and  not  merely  the  result  y 
of  habit  or  of  the  intellectual  choice  of  means  for  satisfying 
the  desire  for  power." 

[811 


nj 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

the  primary  impulses.  I  have  already  re- 
ferred to  its  atavistic  and  irrational  character 
in  the  human  adult.  The  strange  assortment 
of  "collections,"  —  butterflies,  minerals, 
postage  stamps,  violins,  pottery,  old  masters, 
manuscripts,  incunabula,  —  is  reducible  to 
some  kind  of  order  and  homogeneity  only 
through  being  subsumed  under  the  generic 
trait.  The  collectors  deceive  themselves  by 
pretenses,  by  talk  about  the  interests  of  art  and 
science ;  in  reality,  their  doings  are  essentially 
similar  to  those  of  the  bone-burying  dog. 

But  it  is  questionable  whether  this  factor 
plays  a  large  part  in  the  business  man's 
doings.  His  behavior  on  the  whole  is  not 
much  akin  to  that  of  the  miser ;  and  the  miser 
is  your  collector  par  excellence.  Where  he 
shows  indications  of  a  collecting  bent,  they 
appear  rather  in  the  spending  of  a  fortune  than 
in  its  making.  Often  enough  your  successful 
man  of  affairs  turns  to  acquiring  a  lot  of 
paintings,  books,  manuscripts,  what  not.  Just 
how  far  he  is  moved  by  the  instinct  of  col- 
lection, how  far  by  slavish  emulation  in  dis- 

[82] 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    MONEY-MAKING 

play,  how  far  by  a  real  love  of  art  or  letters, 
it  might  be  difficult  to  say.  Beyond  question 
there  is  a  mixture  of  motives;  and  the  ele- 
ments and  proportions  in  the  mixture  vary 
from  individual  to  individual.  The  collecting 
instinct  may  be  strong  in  some  business  men, 
just  as  it  is  strong  in  some  persons  far  removed 
from  the  ways  of  business.  But  it  does  not  seem 
to  be  an  outstanding  or  characteristic  trait. 
It  may  be  urged  that  there  is  an  instinct 
for  acquisition  in  general  (Erwerbstrieb,  as 
the  Germans  call  it),  and  that  we  should 
speak  of  this  rather  than  of  collection  when 
we  try  to  analyze  the  business  man's  tempera- 
ment.1 Collection  is  directed  to  a  particular 
object,  be  it  postage  stamps  or  old  masters 
or  (as  with  the  miser)  hard  cash.  Acquisition, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  for  possessions  in  general. 
But  I  doubt  whether  there  is  anything  in 
the  nature  of  an  all-encircling  acquisitive 
instinct,  just  as  I  doubt  whether  there  is  a 
real  instinct  of  ownership.     To  say  that  there 

1  Cp.    Schmoller,    Volksvrirthschaftslehre,    Vol.    I,    p.    32. 
(Ed.  of  1900.) 

[83] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

is  an  instinct  of  acquisition  comes  to  much 
the  same  thing  as  to  assume,  with  our  old 
friend  Senior,  that  all  men  strive  for  additional 
wealth  without  limit.  Why  some  men  seem 
to  do  so  is  precisely  the  problem  which  we 
are  trying  to  solve. 

Turn  next  to  the  instinct  of  domination. 
The  psychologists  and  biologists  apply  to  it 
more  commonly  such  terms  as  "pugnacity" 
and  "predation."  "Domination"  seems  to 
me  to  bring  out  more  clearly  its  influence  in 
the  social  and  economic  sphere.  Biologically 
it  is  doubtless  referable  to  the  struggle  of 
male  against  male,  and  thus  to  the  sexual 
instinct,  whose  workings  in  so  many  unex- 
pected directions  were  laid  bare  through  the 
patience  and  genius  of  Darwin.  It  is  typified 
by  the  lord  of  the  herd  and  by  his  conquest 
and  outdriving  of  rivals  in  the  herd.  Prob- 
ably in  the  human  animal  it  is  strengthened 
by  that  phase  of  the  struggle  for  existence 
which  appears  in  the  contest  for  the  land. 
Tribe  against  tribe,  invader  against  invaded, 
the  vast  folk  wanderings  of  nomadic  races,  — 

[84] 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    MONEY-MAKING 

in  these  unceasing  struggles  the  victory  was 
likely  to  remain  with  those  who  had  the 
most  highly  developed  instinct  of  conquest. 
Through  historic  time  and  perhaps  prehistoric 
also *  the  tale  of  struggle  has  been  well-nigh 
continuous.  And  the  instinct  of  domination, 
like  others,  has  powerfully  influenced  the 
actions  of  men  long  after  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  developed  had  ceased.  This 
alone  enables  us  to  understand  the  rivalries  of 
dynasties  during  the  later  Middle  Ages  and 
through  modern  times.  It  survives  in  the 
nationalist  fighting  temper,  which  baffles 
the  apostles  of  peace  so  persistently  and  (to 
them)  so  inexplicably. 
y_  The  importance  of  the  instinct  of  domina- 
tion has  lately  been  dwelt  on  in  a  curious  and 

1  Professor  Veblen,  in  his  Instinct  of  Workmanship,  —  a 
brilliant  and  original  book,  like  everything  that  comes  from 
his  pen, — adduces  evidence  to  show  that  through  a  long  pre- 
historic period  the  comparatively  peaceful  instinct  of  work- 
manship (contrivance)  prevailed  over  the  warlike  one  of 
domination.  I  can  profess  no  competence  to  judge  on  this 
question,  but  suspect  that  the  evidence  is  not  sufficient  to 
lead  to  well-defined  conclusions. 

[85] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

suggestive  way  by  a  scholar  who  approached 
the  general  subject  chiefly  from  the  historical 
point  of  view.  Professor  Sombart,  in  his  re- 
markable studies  on  the  genesis  of  modern 
capitalism,  has  laid  emphasis  on  the  con- 
queror strain  in  the  business  leader.  Those 
races  in  which  the  spirit  of  adventure  and  con- 
quest was  strong  are  also  those  in  which  the 
characteristic  qualities  of  the  business  man 
are  most  abundant.  Such,  he  believes, 
were  the  Romans,  the  Vikings  and  Norse- 
men, the  Genoese  and  Pisans  in  their  piratic 
days,  the  English  freebooters  and  adventurers 
of  Tudor  times,  the  English  and  the  Germans ; 
whereas  the  Goths  and  Celts,  and,  in  general, 
the  Latin  nations  in  which  the  Celtic  racial 
strain  is  strong,  show  less  of  the  spirit  of 
domination.  And  this  spirit  he  distinguishes 
from  that  of  bargaining  and  merchandising, 
which  is  the  more  important  element  in  the 
business  endowment  of  the  Florentines  and 
Jews  and  (not  so  plausibly  made  out)  of  the 
lowland  Scotch.1 

1  Sombart,  Der  Bourgeois,  Ch.  V,  p.  69  seq. 
[86] 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    MONEY-MAKING 

I  would  not  undertake  to  say  how  far  such 
differences  of  racial  aptitudes  can  be  proved. 
What  concerns  us  in  the  present  discussion 
is  that  the  historical  and  the  psychological 
methods  lead  to  similar  reflections.  Domina- 
tion, power,  conquest,  —  this  plays  a  great 
part  in  the  industrial  world  as  well  as  in  the 
political.  It  goes  with  the  love  of  adventure, 
to  which  we  give  in  business  life  the  more 
euphemistic  term  "enterprise."  It  was  said 
by  one  who  knew  well  the  late  Edward  H. 
Harriman  that  his  most  daring  enterprises,  — 
which  the  malcontents  were  disposed  to  de- 
scribe as  forays, — could  be  understood  only  by 
bearing  in  mind  that  he  was  a  "dead  game 
sport."  The  late  J.  P.  Morgan,  a  man  of 
very  different  type,  was  discerned  by  all  who 
came  in  contact  with  him  to  have  an  over- 
powering personality.  The  projectors  and 
ruling  spirits  among  those  who  built  the  earlier 
Western  railways  are  described  by  one  of 
their  associates  in  the  following  terms : 
"They  were  men  of  fine  physique,  large  brain, 
and  tremendous  force  and  energy.     Had  they 

[87] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

lived  two  hundred  years  before,  they  would 
have  become  kings  and  dukes.  At  the  head 
of  their  clans,  with  the  battle-axe  or  broad- 
sword, they  would  have  led  to  victory  or 
death.  No  sentimental  nonsense  about  the 
rights  of  others,  the  value  of  human  life,  or 
the  sorrows  of  widows  or  orphans  would  have 
blocked  their  way.  They  were  cast  in  that 
impetuous  mould  which  brooked  no  opposi- 
tion." x 

This  disposition  seems  to  come  into  opera- 
tion not  so  much  in  the  earlier  as  in  the  later 
stage  of  the  "successful"  man's  career,  and 
in  that  later  stage  goes  far  toward  explaining 
the  insatiableness  of  the  appetite  for  wealth, 
—  that  sustained  desire  for  additional  wealth 
which  Senior  regarded  as  a  matter  of  common 
consciousness  and  which  yet  seems  to  the 
philosophic  observer  a  phenomenon  both 
curious  and  uncommon.  During  the  early 
and  tentative  stages  of  his  career  the  man  of 
dominating  temper  is  probably  still  ruled  by 
other  and  more  familiar  impulses,  such  as  the 

1  Stickney,  The  Railway  Problem,  p.  12. 
[88] 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    MONEY-MAKING 

mere  love  of  comfort  and  the  ambition  for 
social  distinction  (to  be  considered  presently). 
.^But  as  his  enterprises  grow,  he  feels  the  itch 
of  power.  Then  we  witness  the  unceasing 
extension,  the  accumulation  of  more  money 
and  still  more,  the  building  up  of  business  so 
vast  as  eventually  to  sap  the  strength  and 
impair  the  health  and  happiness  of  their 
creators.  To  this  sort  of  thing  there  seems  to 
be  no  limit.  The  term  "captain  of  industry5' 
fits  better  than  its  glib  users  think.  Like 
Alexander  or  Napoleon,  the  captain  of  in- 
dustry would  rule  the  world. 

The  motivation  for  the  incessant  enlarge- 
ment of  the  scale  of  operations  by  the  great 
business  leaders  seems  to  me  to  be  misread 
by  Sombart,  of  whose  studies,  none  the  less, 
I  would  not  speak  otherwise  than  in  the 
highest  terms.  He  would  explain  the  phenom- 
enon on  the  ground  that  the  business  enter- 
prise, after  a  certain  stage  has  been  reached, 
is  no  longer  servant  but  becomes  master. 
The  captain  of  industry  finds  he  must  ex- 
pand;   he  cannot  stop.     He   can   hardly  be 

[89] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

said  to  possess  his  enterprises;  he  seems 
veritably  to  be  possessed  by  them.1  And  it 
is  true  that  some  such  phrases  are  likely 
to  be  used  by  the  man  himself  when  he  tries 
to  explain  his  doings.  Yet  in  thus  analyzing 
the  case  he  but  gives  still  further  illustration 
of  the  half-truths  and  the  pretenses,  the 
conventional  phrases,  by  which  men  deceive 
themselves.  It  is  far  from  true  that  the  man 
can  not  stop.  He  does  not  wish  to  stop. 
The  force  that  holds  him  to  his  endless  task 
is  not  anything  immanent  in  the  business 

1  See  the  interesting  passages  in  Der  Bourgeois,  p.  448, 
and  the  excerpts  there  given  from  the  memoirs  of  Rathenau 
and  Carnegie.  Compare,  however,  pp.  225-227,  where  the 
"Machtgefuhl"  is  described. 

I  cannot  accept  the  opinion  expressed  by  Sombart  (Moderne 
Kapitalismus,  Vol.  I,  pp.  xx,  xxii;  cp.  also  p.  378  seq.) 
that  general  psychological  analysis  is  of  no  service.  In  the 
later  book  (Der  Bourgeois,  p.  222  seq.)  something  in  the  nature 
of  set  psychological  analysis  is  nevertheless  essayed  by  Som- 
bart himself.  He  finds  four  "elementare  Wertekomplexe" 
in  the  child ;  these,  and  these  only,  are  to  be  found  in  all  the 
characteristically  modern  valuations  or  ideals,  i.e.  those  of 
the  capitalist  era.  For  each  of  them,  as  transcribed  below,  I 
append  comments  on  their  relation  to  the  scheme  of  psycho- 
logical explanation  sketched  in  these  lectures : 

[90] 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    MONEY-MAKING 

enterprise;  it  is  the  power  of  overmastering 
instincts  in  himself.  Among  the  instincts 
thus  possessing  him  and  holding  him  to  his 
industrial  activity,  some  part  is  played,  as 
I  shall  presently  explain,  by  the  instinct  of 
devotion.  But  that  of  domination  seems  here 
to  be  the  more  important.  The  business  man 
who  has  "made  his  pile"  does  not  consciously  , 
weigh  the  pleasures  of  retirement  and  leisure 

1.  The  sense  of  bigness.  —  I  confess  to  a  doubt  whether 
this  is  referable  to  any  of  the  instincts  mentioned  in  modern 
psychology. 

2.  The  love  of  speed. — This  would  seem  a  manifestation  of 
the  instinct  of  the  chase ;  it  is  found  in  all  classes  and  under  . 
all  economic  conditions.  It  is  not  a  peculiarly  modern  trait, 
nor  is  it  specially  characteristic  of  the  business  classes.  Com- 
pare what  is  said  by  Groos  (The  Play  of  Man,  p.  236)  about 
the  hunting  instinct,  "the  impulse  to  pursue  a  fleeing  crea- 
ture ...  as  much  an  inborn  impulse  in  man  as  in  the  lower 
animals." 

3.  The  attraction  of  novelty:  perhaps  referable  to  the  in- 
stinct of  contrivance  ?  or  the  instinct  of  curiosity  ?  (see  below, 
p.  108). 

4.  The  love  of  power:  this  is  the  instinct  of  domination. 
The  inadequacy  of  Sombart's  classification  and  analysis 

seems  to  show  that  the  student  of  social  and  economic  phenom- 
ena has  after  all  something  to  learn  from  general  psy- 
chology. 

[91] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

against    those    of    activity    and    command; 
neither  does  the  business  itself  possess  him. 
He   simply  follows  the   inborn   love  of   rule 
until  old  age  or  failing  strength  compel  him 
to  relax  his  grasp. 

Some  things  familiar  in  our  industrial  life 
are  more  easily  understood  from  this  point 
of  view.  The  instinct  of  domination  plays  a 
considerable  part,  I  believe,  in  the  movement 
for  combination.  We  have  seen  of  late 
years  how  frequently  men  of  established 
worldly  position  and  power,  so  rich  that  still 
further  accumulation  can  add  nothing  to  their 
creature  enjoyments,  nevertheless  scheme  and 
labor  with  all  their  energy  for  great  combina- 
tions, huge  monopolistic  enterprises.  We  see 
how  fiercely  and  ruthlessly  they  fight  intruders 
and  competitors.  Here  again  Sombart  seems 
to  err  in  emphasis.  He  suggests  that  ruth- 
lessness  and  unscrupulousness  are  peculiar 
traits  of  the  modern  economic  man.1  These 
seem  to  me  to  be  traits  of  the  conqueror ;  they 
are  manifestations  of  the  instinct  of  domina- 

1  Der  Bourgeois,  p.  233. 
[92] 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    MONEY-MAKING 

tion.  It  is  not  merely  money-making  in 
itself,  or  the  motives  usually  associated  with 
it,  that  lead  the  trust  magnate  to  crush  a 
rising  competitor.  To  no  small  degree,  it  is 
the  instinct  to  suffer  no  opposition  to  control. 
So  far  from  being  avowed,  this  impulse  as 
a  rule  is  not  even  consciously  felt  by  the  very 
persons  whom  it  moves.  They  will  talk  of 
the  economies  to  be  expected  from  large- 
scale  operation  and  consolidation,  of  the 
wastes  of  competition,  of  better  service, 
lowered  prices,  and  what  not.  Yet  in  truth 
the  schemes  for  overpowering  combinations 
are  to  a  great  degree  mere  manifestations  of 
megalomania. 

The  instinct  of  domination,  further,  helps 
to  explain  the  intemperate  opposition  to 
trade-unions  which  is  almost  invariably  shown  \ 
by  the  business  leader.  I  have  already 
noted  how  the  instinct  of  contrivance  causes 
him  to  resent  the  restrictive  policies  of  unions. 
At  least  equally  significant  in  explaining  his 
attitude  is  the  love  of  power.  He  wants  to 
"run  his  own  business."     This  is  by  no  means 

[93] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

inconsistent  with  a  genuine  concern  for  the 
well-being  of  his  workmen.  The  able  employer 
very  commonly  has  a  paternalistic  feeling,  a 
wish  to  see  happy  faces  among  those  whose 
lives  come  under  his  influence;  the  weight 
of  the  kindly  disposition  in  any  individual 
depending  on  the  extent  to  which  another 
instinct,  that  of  sympathy  or  devotion,  enters 
into  his  psychological  make-up.  But  in  any 
event  he  does  not  wish  to  be  interfered  'with. 
And,  per  contra,  precisely  this  same  instinct 
of  domination  easily  takes  possession  of  the 
strong  labor  union  and  especially  of  its  leaders. 
To  the  unionists,  as  to  the  employers,  there 
is  an  immense  satisfaction  in  giving  orders, 
in  exacting  obedience.  The  labor  leader 
drunk  with  power  is  as  natural  a  figure  as 
the  capitalist  drunk  with  power.  Alongside 
the  questions  of  wages,  hours,  working  condi- 
tions, is  the  contest  for  control.  The  strong 
employer's  desire  to  crush  the  union  is  not 
merely  the  outcome  of  cold  calculations  of 
profit;  unaware  of  what  is  working  within 
him,  he  obeys  a  primal  impulse. 

[94] 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    MONEY-MAKING 

I  turn  now  to  a  trait  or  disposition  which 
perhaps  deserves  even  less  than  the  preceding 
to  be  called  an  instinct,  —  namely,  emula- 
tion, and  its  concomitant  of  imitation.  One 
hesitates  to  classify  it  as  an  instinct  because 
it  seems  least  of  all  to  be  excited  by  a  specific 
stimulus  or  to  lead  to  specific  action,  —  these 
being  the  marks  of  what  the  biologists  would 
regard  as  a  true  instinct.  But  the  same  doubt 
arises  concerning  the  other  traits  under  con- 
sideration. The  instinct  of  contrivance  in 
man  is  obviously  not  directed  to  a  specific 
end,  as  it  is  in  the  bee  or  the  beaver.  Neither 
is  the  instinct  of  collection.  Barring  those  in- 
stincts which  have  most  closely  the  character  of 
reflex  action,  like  the  sexual  instinct  and  the 
infant's  suckling,  we  have  to  deal  throughout 
with  innate  tendencies  of  a  general  sort.  From 
the  earliest  stage  they  are  affected  by  experi- 
ence and  environment,  are  subject  to  diversion, 
often  show  their  influence  in  unexpected  ways.1 

1  Hence  the  biologist  would  deny  that  any  of  them  are 
instincts  in  the  sense  proper  for  his  inquiries.  See  Lloyd 
Morgan,  Instinct  and  Experience,  Ch.  IV,  p.  108.     Because 

[95] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

Such  at  all  events  is  clearly  the  case  with  the 
tendency  to  emulation. 

How  pervasive  is  this  tendency,  we  do  not 
need  to  be  told.  William  James  remarked, 
that  "nine-tenths  of  the  work  of  the  world 
is  done  by  it."  *  It  combines  spontaneously 
with  the  instincts  of  play,  of  the  chase,  of 
construction,  of  domination.  The  particular 
form  in  which  it  is  probably  most  pervasive, 
and  certainly  most  significant  for  the  inquiries 
of  the  economist,  is  the  love  of  social  distinc- 
tion; meaning  by  "social"  what  the  fashion 
columns  of  the  newspapers  mean  when  they 
gossip  about  "society."  The  wish  to  be 
considered  a  member  of  a  superior  set  ap- 
pears in  every  organized  aggregation  of  human 
beings.  The  Darwinians  would  find  its  origin, 
and  its  analog  among  animals,  in  sexual 
selection;  a  view  confirmed  by  its  special 
strength   during   adolescence   and   the   years 

of  a  difference  in  degree,  —  the  less  specific  direction  of 
emulation  and  imitation,  —  Graham  Wallas  would  remove 
this  from  the  list  of  instincts  or  "dispositions,"  even  in  the 
wider  non-biological  sense.  Wallas,  The  Great  Society,  p.  121. 
1  Principles  of  Psychology,  II,  p.  409. 
[96] 


PSYCHOLOGY    OP    MONEY-MAKING 

immediately  after  adolescence.  What  young 
person  is  free  from  the  desire  to  be  "sporty"  ? 
But  it  is  found  in  relations  and  associations 
that  are  far  removed  from  the  instinct  of 
sex,  and  indeed  is  among  the  very  few  impulses 
which  will  sometimes  overpower  that  in- 
stinct. In  the  economic  sphere  the  wish  to 
swing  yourself  into  the  supposedly  upper 
class  is  the  force  which  more  than  any  other 
influences  the  budding  businessman.  During 
the  earlier  stages  of  his  career,  as  I  have  just 
remarked,  it  is  this  motive  above  all  that  im- 
pels him.  It  is  only  in  the  later  stages,  — 
if  he  be  among  the  leaders  of  the  first  rank,  — 
that  the  instinct  of  domination  becomes 
conspicuous.  It  may  then  supplant  in  part 
that  of  emulation,  in  part  combine  with  it 
and  give  it  a  different  direction.  But  the 
great  majority  of  those  who  actively  conduct 
business  are  probably  impelled  throughout 
their  lives  by  social  emulation  more  than  by 
any  other  force.  Not  until  we  reflect  delib- 
erately do  we  become  aware  how  prepon- 
derantly the  chief  objects  of  desire  and  ex- 

[97] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

penditure  among  the  possessing  classes  are 
simply  manifestations  of  this  disposition. 
The  garb  of  the  well-to-do  and  the  rich,  their 
dwellings,  their  decorations  and  their  art, 
fashions,  amusements ;  their  display  and  what 
we  call  their  extravagance,  —  all  are  sought 
and  enjoyed  mainly  because  they  give  evi- 
dence of  belonging  to  the  supposedly  select 
superior  classes.  And  where  the  community 
is  democratized  as  much  as  it  is  in  the  United 
States,  the  barriers  between  classes  being  no 
longer  maintained  by  law  or  rigid  custom, 
this  passion  has  universal  scope.  Freedom 
of  opportunity,  so  far  from  putting  an  end 
to  what  the  philosopher  calls  vanity  and  os- 
tentation, seems  in  reality  to  foster  it. 

A  recognition  of  the  universality  of  social 
emulation  served  to  confirm  the  older  econo- 
mists in  that  doctrine  of  theirs  which  I  have 
made  the  text  of  the  present  discourse,  —  that 
all  men  desire  to  obtain  additional  wealth  in- 
definitely. It  is  of  the  essence  of  emulation 
that  there  is  never  an  end  to  it.  Whoever  may 
be  in  the  van,  some  one  else  wishes  to  surpass 

[98] 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    MONEY-MAKING 

him ;  and  so  on  without  limit.  Adam  Smith 
remarked  that  "the  desire  of  food  is  limited  in 
every  man  by  the  narrow  capacity  of  the  human 
stomach;  but  the  desire  of  the  conveniences 
and  ornaments  of  building,  dress,  equipage,  and 
household  furniture  seems  to  have  no  limit  or 
certain  boundary."  !  The  belief  that  display 
was  indefinitely  extensible,  and  that  therefore 
human  wants  in  general  were  indefinitely  ex- 
tensible, was  at  the  bottom  of  the  older  reason- 
ing about  over-production.  One  of  the  notions 
which  the  older  British  school  spurned  with  al- 
most angry  impatience  was  that  there  could 
be  such  a  thing  as  an  excess  of  output.  Non- 
sense ;  is  it  not  obvious  that  men's  wants  are 
limitless,  and  that  no  more  can  possibly  be 
turned  out  than  they  will  buy  and  use? 
And  such  in  truth  seems  to  be  the  case  when  it 
is  the  emulative  disposition  that  sets  in  mo- 
tion money-making  and  money-spending. 

The  modern  manifestations  of  social  emula- 
tion seem  to  be  derived  chiefly  from  feudal 

1  Wealth  of  Nations,  Book  I,  Ch.  XI,  Pt.  II  (Vol.  I,  p.  165, 
Cannan  Ed.). 

[99] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

ideals  and  traditions.  Just  as  it  can  be  said 
that  the  instinct  of  domination  characterizes 
both  the  medieval  conqueror  and  the  modern 
captain  of  industry,  so  it  can  be  said,  with 
even  greater  show  of  reason,  that  the  special 
forms  of  emulation  which  stirred  the  one 
have  been  transmitted  to  the  other.  The 
ways  of  life  among  feudal  superiors  came  to 
be  copied  by  those  of  lower  station.  The  ideal 
of  the  feudal  upper  class  was  leisure  and 
exemption  from  prescribed  tasks.  The  chase 
and  emulative  play  were  the  occupations  bf 
the  day.1  The  middle  classes,  as  they  became 
possessed  of  substantial  property  and  assured 
income,  absorbed  the  same  ideals  and  strove 
for  the  same  objects  of  ambition.  Wherever 
permitted  to  rise,  —  most  strikingly  so  in 
England,  —  the  rich  bourgeois  allied  himself 
with  the  feudal  aristocrat.  To  the  philo- 
sophic   observer    it    is    amusing    to    see    the 

1  Sombart  maintains  (Der  Bourgeois,  p.  103)  that  feudal 
lords  were  engaged  in  money-making  (capitalist)  operations 
much  more  than  is  commonly  supposed.  But  such  activity, 
even  if  shown  to  be  usual  and  typical,  is  not  inconsistent  with 
the  transmission  of  emulation  as  indicated  in  the  text. 

[100] 


PSYCHOLOGY    OF    MONEY-MAKING   j 

unabashed  pursuit  of  the  impoverished  *  noble 
by  the  millionaire  heiress  —  and  vice  versa; 
just  as  it  is  amusing  to  see  the  modern  noble 
drop  the  ancient  scorn  for  trade  and  join  the 
scheming  capitalists  in  unvarnished  money- 
making.  The  shop  girl  to  whom  the  Sunday 
newspaper  caters  with  its  photographs  of 
society  women  is  but  one  in  a  long  array  of 
persons  all  of  whom  are  under  the  spell  of  a 
phase  of  emulation  handed  down  from  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  course  of  development  is 
not  difficult  to  trace :  first,  the  forces  which 
brought  about  the  feudal  system,  —  the 
struggles  between  clans  and  peoples,  the  uni- 
versality of  predation  and  the  need  of  pro- 
tection against  unceasing  predation;  thence 
the  rise  of  a  superior  class  of  titled  warriors ; 
and  finally  the  acceptance  and  perpetuation 
among  all  the  well-to-do  of  the  thus  estab- 
lished ideals  of  aristocratic  position  and 
conduct. 


[101] 


IV 

Altruism;   the  Instinct  of  Devotion 

I  turn  now  to  an  instinct  of  quite  a  dif- 
ferent kind,  variously  described  by  the  terms 
pity,  sympathy,  love,  altruism,  the  moral 
sentiment,  devotion.  The  last-named,  "de- 
votion," though  not  so  familiar  as  the  others, 
seems  to  fit  best  into  the  present  discussion, 
and  I  shall  use  it  freely  in  the  following  to 
denote  those  aspects  of  the  business  man's 
motivation  which  are  often  spoken  of  as 
1  *  non-economic . ' ' 

The  older  controversy,  whether  man  is  or  is 
not  endowed  with  a  moral  sense,  —  whether 
there  is  a  radical  opposition  between  egoism 
and  altruism,  —  has  died  out.  The  questions 
which  psychologists  now  debate  concern  not 
the  existence  of  the  moral  sentiment,  but  its 
origin,  scope,  relativity.  A  view  much  in 
favor  is  that  it  roots  in  the  maternal  and 

[102] 


ALTRUISM;    INSTINCT    OF    DEVOTION 

paternal  instincts,  and  is  an  outgrowth  of  the 
domestic  affections.1  Beyond  question  it  ap- 
pears in  some  individuals  with  overpowering 
force;  just  as  the  instinct  of  contrivance 
appears  with  irresistible  intensity  in  a  Cart- 
wright,  Ericsson,  Edison.  As  regards  either 
trait,  we  are  justified  in  regarding  these 
extraordinary  manifestations  as  pointing  to 
a  disposition  which,  though  overlain  and  con- 
cealed almost  beyond  recognition  at  the  other 
extreme,  nevertheless  is  universal  and  innate. 
It  is  most  curious  that  the  earlier  econo- 
mists ignored  so  completely  the  existence  of  the 
instinct  of  devotion ;  or  if  they  did  not  quite 
ignore  it,  brushed  it  aside  with  something  like 
impatience.  Their  attitude  is  curious  be- 
cause this  very  instinct  probably  evoked  a 
strong  and  quick  response  in  the  breast  of 
every  one  of  them.  I  dare  say  that  without 
exception  they  were  men  of  high  devotion 

1  See,  e.g.,  Sutherland,  The  Origin  and  Growth  of  the  Moral 
Instinct  (1898).  Similar  conclusions,  also  harking  back  to 
Darwin,  but  with  less  stress  on  the  paternal  instinct  alone, 
are  in  Westermarck,  Origin  and  Development  of  the  Moral  Ideas 
(1908). 

[103] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

and  public  spirit,  with  much  more  than  the 
average  disposition  to  make  sacrifices  for 
the  good  of  others.  How  did  they  come  to 
be  silent  or  inattentive  about  an  impulse 
which   nevertheless    they    obeyed? 

The  explanation  is  to  be  found  in  several 
directions.  Much  was  due,  no  doubt,  to  the 
sway  of  the  associationist  psychology  and 
its  companion,  hedonistic  ethics.  Honesty 
was  regarded  as  merely  the  best  policy; 
virtue  was  the  intelligent  pursuit  of  pleas- 
ure; devotion  to  the  interests  of  others  was 
merely  habituation  to  a  mode  of  conduct 
which  had  been  found  to  be  expedient  in 
the  long  run.  The  sway  of  these  tenets  no 
doubt  goes  far  to  explain  the  attitude  of  the 
earlier  economists,  especially  those  of  the 
British  "classical"  school. 

Yet  it  would  seem  that  this  alone  cannot 
tell  the  whole  story;  as  is  indicated  by  the 
fact  that  the  same  brushing  aside  of  altruism, 
and  the  same  neglect  of  all  except  "strictly 
economic"  reasoning,  is  to  be  found  among 
modern    writers    whose    intellectual    affilia- 

[104] 


ALTRUISM;   INSTINCT    OF    DEVOTION 

tions  are  quite  different.  The  mathematical 
economists,  the  Austrians  and  their  followers, 
contemporary  theorists  of  all  sorts,  reason 
with  precisely  the  same  exclusion  of  all  but 
the  narrower  self-regarding  motives.  They, 
too,  even  though  quite  free  from  the  dominance 
of  the  hedonistic  ethics  and  certainly  not  con- 
scious upholders  of  its  principles,  neverthe- 
less apply  the  same  bald  calculus  to  the 
analysis  of  economic  phenomena. 

The  main  explanation  of  the  persistence  of 
this  as  the  sufficient  organon  of  economics  is 
to  be  found,  I  suspect,  in  a  trait  of  which  most 
economic  writers  themselves  are  hardly  con- 
scious. They  are  impelled  by  what  may  be 
styled  the  ratiocinative  instinct.  Not  less  cu- 
rious than  the  way  in  which  the  economists  of 
older  and  younger  date  close  their  eyes  to 
their  own  moral  feelings  is  their  unconscious- 
ness of  the  special  strength  in  themselves 
of  this  disposition.  They  are  little  aware, 
if  at  all,  that  they  deal  with  their  subject  in 
obedience  to  a  bent  of  their  own  for  "pure" 
reasoning  and  "scientific"  procedure.  The 
[105] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

modern  psychologist,  who  in  turn  may  pro- 
ceed in  the  same  way,  has  at  least  clearer 
consciousness  of  his  tricks  and  ways.  He 
turns  his  analytic  powers  on  himself,  and 
finds  the  intellectualistic  and  ratiocinative 
process  to  be  but  one  among  the  modes  of 
cognition,  and  not  necessarily  the  only  one 
permissible;  certainly  not  that  which  all 
men  are  always  disposed  to  apply.  William 
James  —  to  refer  once  more  to  that  most 
stimulating  writer  —  protested  against  the 
hard-headed  man's  assumption  that  his  was 
the  only  tenable  way  of  looking  at  the  uni- 
verse. In  reality  the  hard-headed  person 
was  but  following  his  own  bent,  which  was 
no  more  entitled  to  be  set  up  as  the  only 
"reasonable"  attitude  than  that  of  the  man 
of  intuition  and  emotion.1  And  elsewhere, 
in  his  later  writings,  he  laid  stress    on    the 

1  See  the  essay  on  "The  Will  to  Believe"  in  the  volume 
of  collected  papers  to  which  this  one  gave  the  title.  As 
James  himself  remarked  (if  I  am  rightly  informed  about  some 
later  utterances  of  his)  a  better  indication  of  the  tenor  of  this 
essay  would  have  been  given  if  he  had  headed  it  "The  Right 
to  Believe." 

[106] 


ALTRUISM;   INSTINCT   OF    DEVOTION 

distinction  between  the  two  outstanding  types 
of  temperament,  the  "tough-minded"  and 
the  "tender-minded."  They  represent  very 
different  ways  of  regarding  the  universe  and 
every  phase  of  its  phenomena,  neither  hav- 
ing any  claim  a  priori  to  be  thought  more 
valid  than  the  other.1 

Psychologists  of  similar  catholic  spirit  call 
attention  to  the  importance  of  some  of  our  in- 
born traits  for  the  explanation  of  intellectual 
procedures  which  are  supposedly  superior  to 
any  bent  or  bias.  Among  the  classified 
and  enumerated  instincts  is  that  of  curiosity ; 
and  closely  allied  to  this  is  the  "disposition" 

1  It  may  not  be  superfluous  to  quote  the  delightful  charac- 
terization of  the  two  attitudes  (Pragmatism,  p.  12) : 

The  Tender-minded  The  Tough-minded 

Rationalistic  (going  by  Empiricist  (going  by 

"principles")  "facts") 

Intellectualistic  Sensationalistic 

Idealistic  Materialistic 

Optimistic  Pessimistic 

Religious  Irreligious 

Free-willist  Fatalistic 

Monistic  Pluralistic 

Dogmatical  Skeptical 
[107] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

toward  ratiocination.  Curiosity  is  doubt- 
less to  be  regarded  as  a  true  instinct.  So 
much  we  may  infer  from  its  presence  in 
animals,  where  it  may  be  argued  to  be  among 
the  favorable  factor  in  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, and  from  its  conspicuous  and  ubiquitous 
presence  in  children.  Scientific  speculation 
itself  is  often  nothing  other  than  a  manifesta- 
tion of  the  instinct  of  curiosity.  What  utili- 
tarian explanation  can  be  given  of  research 
on  such  inconsequential  matters  as  prehis- 
toric archaeology  or  the  physical  constitution 
of  stars  that  are  distant  from  us  millions  of 
light-years?  Scientific  inquiry  has  turned 
on  itself,  as  it  were,  and  inquires  why  we 
inquire;  our  instinct  of  curiosity  being  di- 
rected to  the  analysis  of  curiosity  itself.1 

I    would    not    undertake    to    express    any 
general    conclusions    of    my    own    on    these 

1  Cf .  what  is  said  of  the  instinct  of  curiosity  by  McDougall, 
Social  Psychology,  pp.  57,  315.  "The  instinct  of  curiosity  is 
at  the  base  of  many  of  man's  most  splendid  achievements, 
for  rooted  in  it  are  his  speculative  and  scientific  tendencies." 
Wallas  (The  Great  Society,  p.  44  seq.)  doubts  whether  curiosity 
is  an  "instinct";  it  is  a  "disposition,"  on  the  dividing  line 
[108] 


ALTRUISM;   INSTINCT   OF    DEVOTION 

matters;  nor  to  say  whether  economists 
are  on  the  whole  to  be  classed  as  tender- 
minded  or  tough-minded.  Probably  they  are 
commonly  of  the  tough-minded  type.  Though 
as  a  rule  intellectualistic  in  their  modes  of 
reasoning,  they  are  empiricist  and  sensa- 
tional as  regards  their  premises.  What  I 
am  concerned  with  here  is  that  there  is 
among  them  a  temperamental  bent.  This 
bent  is,  in  the  leading  and  influential  econo- 
mists, unmistakably  toward  rigid  and  "scien- 
tific" analysis.  It  is  toward  explanation  by 
general  reasoning,  toward  setting  aside  quali- 
fications and  complications,  toward  the  as- 
certainment of  a  general  trend  in  the  phenom- 
ena. Now  the  surest  way  to  reason  sharply 
and  "scientifically"  about  economic  phenom- 
ena, and  to  reach  precise  conclusions  regard- 
ing them,  is  to  assume  once  for  all  that  men 

between  instinct  and  intelligence;  and  there  is  a  "disposi- 
tion" to  think  and  reason,  no  less  than  one  of  curiosity. 
Sutherland  (Moral  Instinct,  Vol.  II,  p.  303)  refers  to  "the 
causal  instinct,  that  mental  development  which  makes  us 
believe  in  the  existence  of  some  causes  and  find  a  pleasure  in 
discovering  them." 

[109] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

will  procure  anything  and  everything  as 
cheaply  as  they  can ;  that  they  will  never  devi- 
ate from  the  barest  and  simplest  self -regard- 
ing behavior.  Apply  the  hedonistic  calculus  to 
the  bitter  end,  and  you  can  reach  conclu- 
sions susceptible  of  formulation  with  the 
precision  deemed  most  severely  scientific. 
The  crowning  example  of  this  procedure  is  in 
the  application  of  mathematics  to  economic 
reasoning.  The  most  elaborate  and  intricate 
results  are  "proved"  by  the  mathematical 
method,  on  the  assumption  throughout  that 
men  will  obey  the  narrower  self-regarding 
motives  as  surely  and  unerringly  as  matter 
obeys  the  law  of  gravitation.  By  this  pro- 
cedure, and  by  this  alone,  can  economists 
build  up  an  accurate,  logical,  self-consistent 
body  of  doctrines. 

Probably  the  very  fact  that  economics  is 
not  an  exact  science  strengthens  the  disposi- 
tion to  state  its  conclusions  in  exact  terms. 
We  are  constantly  told  that  its  conclu- 
sions hold  good  only  as  approximations. 
They  are  true  only  in  the  rough ;  they  repre- 
[110] 


ALTRUISM;   INSTINCT    OF    DEVOTION 

sent  tendencies ;  they  assume  static  and  not 
dynamic  conditions ;  and  so  on.  All  this  is 
not  to  be  questioned.  Nor  would  I  for  a 
moment  question  either  the  usefulness  or  the 
inevitableness  of  this  mode  of  procedure.  On 
other  occasions,  and  in  connection  with  the 
methodology  of  some  typical  concrete  in- 
vestigations, I  have  pointed  out  the  unques- 
tionable necessity  which  confronts  the  econ- 
omist, of  relying  on  deductive  reasoning 
from  the  hedonistic  premise.1  But  the  ex- 
planation of  such  reliance  is  not  solely  that 

the  economist   must  perforce  do   so.     As   a 



rule  he  also  likes  to  do  so.  The  sort  of  per- 
son who  makes  a  good  economist  is  tempera- 
mentally impatient  of  loose  ends  and  rough 
edges.  He  likes  results  that  are  clean-cut. 
He  is  apt  to  disregard  the  admitted  qualifying 
factors,  and  to  treat  the  qualifications  as 
aberrations  from  the  truth,  not  modifications 
of  his  conclusions.  And  among  the  things 
which  he  is  thus  tempted  to  push  aside  as 

1  In  the  volume  on  Some  Aspects  of  the  Tariff  Question,  pp. 
155,  512. 

[Ill] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

aberrations,  negligible  in  the  formulation  of 
accurate  results,  is  the  influence  of  sympathy, 
or  altruism,  or  devotion. 

Coming  back  now  to  the  particular  topic 
which  has  given  occasion  for  these  general 
remarks,  —  the  psychology  of  money -mak- 
ing,—  we  seem  to  be  justified  in  saying  that 
there  is  less  occasion  for  criticizing  the  econ- 
omists than  on  some  other  matters  in  their 
science.  If  it  is  censurable  that  they  have 
ignored  sympathy  and  devotion  in  their 
theoretic  speculations,  they  can  at  least 
allege  that  men  of  affairs  also,  however  much 
they  may  feel  such  influences,  do  push  them 
aside  in  their  ordinary  industrial  activity. 
Business  is  business :  it  must  not  be  mixed 
with  charity.  I  suspect  that  the  basis  of 
this  neglect  of  feelings  which  no  one  dares 
deny  or  spurn  is  essentially  the  same  for  the 
industrial  leader  as  for  the  speculating  econ- 
omist. It  rests  on  the  tendency,  and  indeed 
almost  the  necessity,  of  ratiocination.  Once 
you  conduct  your  business  on  other  than  strict 
"business"  principles,  you  do  not  know  where 

[112] 


ALTRUISM;   INSTINCT    OF    DEVOTION 

you  are.  There  is  then  no  possibility  of  ac- 
curate reckoning,  of  strict  accounting;  no 
telling  how  you  are  really  coming  out.  No 
doubt  there  are  other  reasons  also  for  keeping 
charity  and  good  will  outside  of  business. 
The  instinct  of  domination,  for  instance,  is 
uppermost  during  the  competitive  struggle, 
and  gives  way  to  that  of  compassion  only 
after  the  victory  is  won.  Business  is  busi- 
ness in  another  sense,  —  in  the  same  sense 
that  war  is  war.  There  is  a  striking  passage 
in  those  remarkable  Memoirs  of  General 
Marbot,  in  which  it  is  recounted  that  the 
conquering  Napoleon,  after  having  merci- 
lessly caused  the  slaughter  of  thousands  by 
directing  that  his  cannon  be  turned  on  the 
frozen  surface  of  the  lake  over  which  the 
Russians  were  retreating,  was  moved  to 
compassion  when  he  saw  a  single  wounded 
officer  floating  on  a  cake  of  ice  in  helpless 
agony,  and  called  for  volunteers  to  the  res- 
cue.1 So  the  business  man  whose  competitor 
has  been  ruined  will  subscribe  most  willingly 

1  Marbot,  Memoirs  (English  translation)  p.  165. 
[113] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

and  liberally  for  the  support  and  comfort  of 
a  bankrupt  rival.     Like  Harry  Percy, 

"  I'll  give  thrice  so  much  land 
To  any  well-deserving  friend ; 
r       But  in  the  way  of  bargain,  mark  ye  me, 
I'll  cavil  on  the  ninth  part  of  a  hair." 

When  it  comes  to  the  spending  of  his  means, 
the  most  remorseless  industrial  conqueror 
may  manifest  devotion  of  the  highest  sort. 
He  is  likely  to  scheme  as  zealously  for  a 
charitable  cause,  to  organize  its  affairs  as 
efficiently,  as  in  his  business  ventures.1 

Nevertheless,  it  would  be  a  mistake  to 
suppose  that  even  in  the  conduct  of  business 
itself  everything  is  explicable  on  grounds  of 
cold  calculation,  or  even  by  reference  to 
such  more  subtle  elements  as  the  instinct  of 

1  It  is  this  striking  difference  between  the  motivation  of 
similar  activities  that  led  Professor  Adolf  Wagner  to  classify 
economic  systems  under  the  three  heads  of  (1)  public,  (2)  pri- 
vate, (3)  "caritative"  or  charitable.  The  suggestion  that 
we  consider  the  activities  which  come  under  the  third  head  as 
a  separate  system  or  order  has  not  met  with  much  favor; 
but  at  least  it  recognizes  a  great  mass  of  phenomena  whose 
very  existence  was  ordinarily  ignored  as  "  non-economic.' ' 
[114] 


ALTRUISM;   INSTINCT   OF    DEVOTION 

domination.  The  "strictly  economic"  do- 
ings of  the  business  man,  as  well  as  those 
which  are  commonly  treated  as  quite  outside 
the  economic  pale,  are  often  in  reality  mani- 
festations of  a  wider  and  larger  self.  There 
is  devotion  to  the  business  itself;  an  ardent 
wish  to  insure  its  success,  a  pride  in  it,  a 
sacrifice  of  ease  and  even  health  for  the  sake 
of  its  prosperity.  The  business  may  be- 
come part  of  the  man's  larger  life,  something 
greater  than  himself  and  outside  himself. 
No  doubt  feelings  of  this  sort  are  stronger 
in  some  persons  than  in  others.  There  are 
cold  and  impassive  men  of  affairs,  to  whom 
it  costs  not  a  pang  to  sell  out  or  abandon  an 
established  enterprise  and  turn  at  once  to 
another.  Yet  I  suspect  that  in  the  majority 
of  cases  a  shift  of  this  kind  means  some  heart- 
wrench.  Not  money-making  alone  is  the 
goal  and  end.  There  is  some  expression  of 
the  man's  personality,  something  to  which 
he  gives  himself  for  its  own  sake.  Evidently 
feelings  of  this  kind  are  more  likely  to  be 
present  in  the  conduct  of  an  individual's 
[115] 


INVENTORS    AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

business  or  in  a  partnership  than  in  that  of 
a  corporation.  Neither  the  holder  of  a  frag- 
ment of  stock  nor  the  manager  of  a  special- 
ized and  restricted  department  in  a  great 
organization  is  likely  to  be  imbued  with  such 
sentiment.  Even  a  general  manager  or  presi- 
dent cannot  feel  toward  the  business  which 
he  administers  as  would  a  private  owner. 
In  this  regard,  as  in  so  many  others,  the 
methods  of  large-scale  corporate  organization, 
impersonal  and  mechanical  as  they  are  in  the 
stage  of  development  as  yet  reached,  give 
little  play  to  instincts  and  faculties  that  mean 
much  for  the  zest  and  happiness  of  life. 

That  interplay  of  various  motives  and 
impulses  which  is  characteristic  of  all  human 
action,  and  perhaps  is  most  characteristic 
in  the  activities  of  the  business  man,  shows 
itself  again  in  connection  with  the  mani- 
festations of  the  instinct  of  devotion.  With 
it  may  be  allied,  for  example,  the  instinct 
of  contrivance.  As  I  have  already  remarked, 
the  business  leader  finds  in  his  enterprises 
the  same  sort  of  satisfaction  as  that  of  the 

[116] 


ALTRUISM;   INSTINCT   OF    DEVOTION 

inventor  in  mechanical  devices:  a  pleasure 
in  the  act  of  contriving  and  operating,  as 
well  as  surrender  of  self  to  one's  own  creation. 
More  important  perhaps  is  the  alliance  of 
the  instinct  of  devotion  with  one  more  con- 
spicuous and  doubtless  in  the  majority  of 
these  cases  more  powerful,  —  the  instinct 
of  pugnacity  or  domination.  How  large 
a  part  this  plays  in  the  motivation  of  the 
captain  of  industry  I  have  also  had  occa- 
sion to  consider.  It  may  seem  odd  that 
two  dispositions  which  are  diametrically  oppo- 
site in  tendency  —  the  one  essentially  altruis- 
tic, the  other  essentially  regardless  of  others, 
—  should  combine  toward  one  single-minded 
course  of  action.  Yet  that  they  do  so  is 
the  most  familiar  of  experiences.  The  senti- 
ment of  patriotism  is  precisely  such  a  com- 
pound of  pugnacity  and  devotion,  —  a  mix- 
ture of  extraordinary  explosive  power,  and 
far  more  potent  in  its  influence  on  men  than 
either  component  acting  by  itself.  The  busi- 
ness man,  as  has  been  pointed  out  in  recent 
speculations  on  these  topics,  seems  often  to 

[117] 


INVENTORS   AND   MONEY-MAKERS 

be  veritably  possessed  by  his  enterprises,1 
So  far  from  being  in  command  of  them,  it 
is  they  that  bend  him  to  their  needs.  This 
obsession,  or  mechanical  pursuit,  or  muta- 
tional persistence  in  perfunctory  money-mak- 
ing, —  whatever  one  chooses  to  call  it,  —  is 
not  a  simple  or  homogeneous  trait.  It  rests 
deep  in  the  complications  of  human  nature. 
The  narrower  self  and  the  wider  self  alike 
find  expression  in  it;  not  merely  pugnacity 
and  emulation,  but  devotion  also. 

A  much  clearer  proof  of  the  power  of  the 
altruistic  influence  is  found  in  the  conduct  of 
public  business,  —  meaning  thereby  the  forms 
of  enterprise  which  are  carried  on  directly 
by  public  authority,  and  are  consciously 
designed  to  secure  the  largest  public  advan- 
tage. There  we  rely  overtly  on  wider  mo- 
tives and  stimuli  than  those  of  private  in- 
dustry. The  very  man  who  will  insist  on 
conducting  his  own  affairs  on  the  strictest 
business  principles,  paying  no  more  and  no 

1  Compare  what  was  said  above,  p.  90,  on  Sombart's 
discussion  of  this  topic. 

[118] 


ALTRUISM;   INSTINCT    OF    DEVOTION 

less  than  the  market  rate,  will  avowedly  and     f 
proudly  give  his  services  to  the  public  for 
much  less  than  he  could  secure  in  private 
life.     Something  must  be  allowed,  no  doubt, 
for  the  conspicuousness  of  public  posts,  for 
the  sense  of  honorable  employment.     Public/ 
officials    are   partly    paid    in   honor,    as    are 
academic    professors    and    ministers    of    the 
gospel.     But  I  am  sure  that  it  is  not  a  true 
opinion  which  supposes  this  alone  to  explain 
the  acceptance  of  meager  salaries  in  public 
employments,  —  which  treats  the  matter  as 
one  simply  of  the  "net  advantages"  of  the 
several  occupations.     No ;   an  impelling  force       ' 
is  the  sense  of  duty,  the  wish  to  promote  / 
general  well-being,  the  instinct  of  devotion. 
Any  one  who  observes  without  prepossession 
what  is  going  on  in  the  modern  world,   in 
our  United  States  at  least  as  much  as  else- 
where, must  admit  that  the  social  and  political 
reformer  is  able  to  draw  on  a  large  fund  of 
public  spirit  in  business  circles.     The  prob- 
lem is  not  whether  it  is  there,  but  how  to  evoke 
it,  how  to  bring  it  to  bear. 
[119] 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

Now  the  distinction  between  public  busi- 
ness and  private  is  an  artificial  one.  The 
public  has  a  concern  in  all  business.  Just 
in  what  way  the  conduct  of  private  business 
is  a  matter  of  public  concern,  it  is  the  chief 
task  of  the  economist  to  explain.  The  dis- 
tinction between  what  is  called  public  indus- 
try and  private  is  one  of  method,  not  of  aim. 
There  are  grounds  —  more  or  less  shifting 
and  uncertain  —  for  maintaining  that  some 
industrial  operations  are  likely  to  be  con- 
ducted with  best  effect  on  general  well- 
being  under  private  ownership  and  manage- 
ment, others  with  best  effect  under  public 
ownership.  But  is  so  great  a  cleavage 
inevitable  between  the  two  as  regards  the 
motives  to  which  they  appeal  ?  It  is  at  least 
conceivable  that  the  spirit  of  devotion,  which 
plays  its  large  part  in  public  business,  may 
affect  the  conduct  of  private  affairs  also.  In 
both  directions,  the  problem,  to  repeat,  is 
not  so  much  to  discover  it  as  to  bring  it  to 
bear,  —  to  combine  and  reenforce  the  vigor, 
the  continuity  of  action,  the  special  intensity 
[120] 


ALTRUISM;   INSTINCT    OF    DEVOTION 

of  emulation,  which  mark  the  ordinary  money- 
making  activities,  with  the  submerged  feel- 
ings of  a  wider  self  brought  to  light  when 
direct  appeal  is  made  to  public  spirit. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  justify  the  state- 
ment with  which  I  began,  —  that  the  desire 
for  additional  wealth,  far  from  being  a  simple 
premise  in  economics,  is  highly  complex. 
It  is  a  curious  blend  of  a  number  of  instincts. 
Some  of  these  will  have  greater  strength  in 
one  individual,  others  in  another.  Their 
relative  influence  in  directing  conduct  will 
be  greatly  affected  by  education,  the  state 
of  public  opinion,  habituation.  We  are  un- 
able to  say  just  how  far  they  are  rooted  and 
unchangeable,  how  far  subject  to  modifica- 
tion through  the  environment.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  no  one  among  them  can  be  stamped 
out  entirely ;  it  is  certain  also  that  all  are  in 
some  degree  subject  to  deliberate  control. 
A  part  of  the  problem  of  human  happiness 
—  by  no  means  the  whole  of  that  problem, 
but  an  important  part  of  it  —  concerns  the 
extent  to  which  we  shall  give  them  scope  or 

[121] 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

repress  them.  The  sexual  instinct  —  to  take 
an  illustration  of  the  most  obvious  sort  — 
must  be  kept  within  bounds,  yet  it  cannot 
be  eradicated.  No  sensible  person  now 
doubts,  notwithstanding  the  noisy  talk  which 
we  sometimes  hear,  that  marriage  and  mo- 
nogamy bring  the  adjustment  best  for  human 
happiness.  Whatever  modification  there  may 
be  in  details  of  existing  law  concerning  the 
family,  there  must  be  no  unbridled  scope  for 
the  sexual  passion,  nor  yet  lack  of  opportunity 
for  its  satisfaction. 

Let  me  say  a  few  words,  in  conclusion,  on 
the  bearings  which  speculations  like  these 
may  have  on  the  problem  of  social  organiza- 
tion and  human  happiness.  It  would  be 
presumptuous  to  pretend  to  offer  anything 
more  than  hints.  I  would  indicate  where  the 
problem  lies.  It  is  part  of  the  great  problem 
of  private  property  and  socialism.  The  desire 
for  additional  wealth  is  the  special  psycho- 
logical appurtenance  of  the  prosperous  and 
property-owning  classes.     The  question  how 

[122] 


ALTRUISM;   INSTINCT    OF    DEVOTION 

far  this  complex  combination  of  impulses 
is  modifiable,  is  part  of  a  whole  series  of  ques- 
tions on  the  possibility  of  modifying  the  capi- 
talistic regime.  Let  me  mention  some  ele- 
ments in  this  large  problem  suggested  by  the 
I  preceding    discussion. 

Some  of  the  constituent  instincts,  it  would 
seem,  can  be  enlisted  and  encouraged  almost 
without  reserve.  Others,  though  they  are  too 
strong  to  be  entirely  suppressed,  must  in  some 
way  be  held  in  check. 

There  would  seem  to  be  no  reason  why  the 
instinct  of  contrivance,  for  example,  should 
be  restrained.  I  have  pointed  out  that  the 
present  economic  organization,  while  tend- 
ing to  stimulate  it  in  the  capitalist  employer, 
often  smothers  it  in  the  hired  laborer.  The 
sum  of  human  happiness  could  be  increased 
by  enlisting  it  and  encouraging  it  among  those 
who  work  for  wages.  On  the  other  hand, 
that  same  instinct  needs  to  be  steadied,  and 
its  aberrations  and  idiosyncrasies  prevented. 
It  should  be  guided  into  the  channels  of 
general  usefulness.     This  much  the  pervasive 

[123] 


INVENTORS   AND   MONEY-MAKERS 

desire  for  wealth  does  tend  to  bring  about. 
It  turns  the  inborn  bent  to  the  contriving 
of  those  things  which  are  of  general  service. 
How  shall  your  collectivist  society  achieve 
the  same  result?  The  question  may  not 
be  unanswerable;  but  it  is  not  to  be  lightly 
brushed   aside. 

The  instinct  of  collection,  —  to  state  again 
the  opinion  which  I  have  already  expressed, 
—  is  not  an  instinct  of  ownership  or  property; 
nor  is  it  among  the  more  powerful  and  ineradi- 
cable. Scope  for  it  should  doubtless  be 
given.  This  much,  indeed,  is  admitted  by 
almost  all  who  frame  socialistic  Utopias. 
Collective  ownership,  even  when  pushed  to 
the  farthest,  is  not  to  be  quite  universal. 
Some  things  are  to  be  your  very  own,  espe- 
cially in  the  array  of  what  we  call  "con- 
sumable" goods  as  distinguished  from  in- 
struments of  production.  Mr.  Wallas  has 
suggested 1  that  it  might  suffice  to  satisfy 
the  instinct  of  acquisition  by  a  simulacrum, — 
some  pretense  or  sop,  sufficient  to  soothe  the 

1  Human  Nature  in  Politics,  p.  37. 
[124] 


ALTRUISM;   INSTINCT    OF    DEVOTION 

irrepressible  longing,  yet  negligible  in  its 
effects  on  the  distribution  of  wealth;  just 
as  the  instinct  of  the  chase  is  satisfied  by 
shooting  at  clay  pigeons  or  "hunting  with  a 
camera."  It  may  be  so;  at  all  events,  I  am 
not  among  those  who  find  in  this  aspect  of 
human  nature  a  bulwark  of  the  institution  of 
property  or  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  col- 
lectivism. 

The  case  seems  to  be  different  with  emula- 
tion. Here  we  have  an  instinct,  or  disposi- 
tion, so  powerful  and  so  pervasive  that  it 
must  always  be  reckoned  with.  To  push  it  » 
aside  would  be  to  deprive  life,  for  most  men, 
of  all  its  spice  and  flavor.  A  Buddhist 
placidity  of  mind,  a  communist  equality  of 
rank,  —  these  are  not  in  accord  with  the 
instincts  powerful  in  the  immense  majority 
of  mankind.  A  society  organized  on  any 
such  basis  would  doubtless  prove  impossible 
of  permanent  continuance.  Before  long,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  it  would  be  recast. 
And  the  particular  form  of  emulation  which  I 
have  entitled  "social"  seems  to  be  likewise 

[125] 


INVENTORS   AND   MONEY-MAKERS 

ineradicable.  No  doubt,  since  it  demands 
that  some  should  be  higher  in  station,  it 
means  necessarily  that  others  will  be  lower. 
But  these  others  would  rather  be  lower  than 
live  in  featureless  equality.  Gradations,  hier- 
archies, shining  leaders,  emulative  aspira- 
tion, —  all  these  appear  spontaneously  when- 
ever men  get  together,  whether  for  play, 
for  mutual  help,  for  voluntary  association,  or 
for  the  great  compulsory  association  of  the 
state.  Every  Englishman  is  said  to  love  a 
lord;  every  American  is  said  to  love  a  title. 
The  exaggeration  is  doubtless  no  greater  in 
the  one  statement  than  in  the  other.  How 
widespread  are  the  "fraternal  orders,"  with 
■  their  marvelous  lists  of  titular  dignitaries ! 

Possibly  this  instinct,  like  that  of  acquisi- 
tion, could  be  satisfied  by  a  pretense  or  simu- 
lacrum; something  on  which  it  could  seize 
and  feed,  not  so  far-reaching  in  economic 
consequences  as  the  existing  disparities  in 
wealth  and  in  social  station  resting  on  wealth. 
Many  persons,  collectivist  dreamers  and  others 
as  well,  have  imagined  systems  of  honors 
[126] 


X 


ALTRUISM;   INSTINCT   OF   DEVOTION 

and  decorations  which  should  incite  men  to 
public  achievement.  A  highly  intelligent  gov- 
ernment, whether  despotic  or  democratic, 
might  conceivably  institute  such  a  system 
with  effectiveness.  Something  of  the  kind  is 
attempted  in  the  orders  and  titles  which  now 
figure  so  much  in  European  countries  :  interest- 
ing cases  of  simulacra,  the  empty  phrases  and 
external  trappings  of  feudal  hierarchy  being 
utilized,  yet  divested  of  their  ancient  content 
and  significance.  Something  analogous  in 
American  life  appears  in  the  conferring  of  hon- 
orary degrees  by  our  universities.  I  would 
not  undertake  to  say  how  far  a  similar  method 
would  be  feasible  in  the  strictly  industrial 
sphere,  or  how  far  titles  and  trappings  would 
be  effective  if  conferred  (as  at  present  they 
are  not)  with  complete  dissociation  from  dif- 
ferences in  wealth  and  income.  Suffice  it  to 
point  out  that  here  is  at  the  least  a  problem 
for  the  ardent  social  reformer.  Social  emula- 
tion is  a  force  of  extraordinary  strength;  its 
manifestations  are  endless;  it  affects,  even 
though  in  very  different  ways,  the  refined  no 

[127] 


INVENTORS    AND   MONEY-MAKERS 

less  than  the  vulgar.  It  is  utilized,  and  is 
guided  to  much  advantage,  even  though  not  to 
the  best  conceivable  advantage,  by  the  institu- 
tion of  property  and  the  social  stratification 
which  is  based  on  accumulated  property. 
Who  can  say  whether  anything  comparable 
in  effectiveness  on  the  great  mass  of  mankind 
could  be  devised  under  a  different  organiza- 
tion   of    society  ? 

At  first  blush,  it  would  seem  that  our  pres- 
ent question  is  susceptible  of  but  one  answer 
as  regards  the  instinct  of  pugnacity.  There 
cannot  be  domination  without  subjugation; 
the  elation  of  victory  necessarily  brings  also 
the  anguish  of  defeat.  So  far  as  a  capitalistic 
and  individualistic  society  fosters  this  dis- 
position, it  appears  incapable  of  adding  to  the 
sum  of  human  happiness.  The  losses  would 
seem  at  the  least  to  balance  the  gains. 

Yet  the  case  is  by  no  means  simple.  The 
instinct  of  domination  is  a  phase  in  the  devel- 
opment of  leadership.  It  does  not  need  to 
be  said  how  transcendentally  important  is 
leadership,  in  industry  as  well  as  in  govern- 

[128] 


ALTRUISM;   INSTINCT   OP   DEVOTION 

ment  and  war.  To  curb  it  in  any  direction 
is  to  curb  the  most  potent  force  for  the  prog- 
ress of  mankind.  Can  it  not  be  utilized, 
enlisted,  encouraged,  turned  into  channels 
of  general  service?  Something  of  this  sort 
has  in  fact  been  achieved  by  our  capital- 
istic institutions,  through  the  very  desire 
for  wealth.  The  instinct  of  domination  is 
not  necessarily  ferocious  or  predatory;  it 
may  be  satisfied  by  the  achievements  of 
peace  as  well  as  by  those  of  war.  Not  a 
little  has  been  gained  through  the  mere  cir- 
cumstance that  it  is  so  largely  shifted  from 
the  political  and  military  sphere  to  the  in- 
dustrial. Better  that  we  should  have  Napo- 
leons of  industry  than  the  blood-guilty  Na- 
poleon of  history.  And  yet  we  may  wish  for 
even  more  progress  in  the  same  direction. 
The  spirit  in  which  Washington  exercised  his 
leadership  in  the  political  field  was  resplend- 
ently  nobler  than  the  spirit  of  Napoleon. 
So  the  future  captain  of  industry  may  be 
actuated  by  ideals  finer  than  those  now 
traditional.  How  to  achieve  such  a  result 
k  [129] 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

is  admitted  by  the  open-minded  thinker, 
however  warm  his  social  sympathies,  to  be 
a  crucial  problem.  Can  we  reconcile  in- 
dustrial leadership  with  industrial  democ- 
racy? Can  we  secure  under  a  different 
organization  and  with  other  kinds  of  stimu- 
lation the  directness  and  the  rapid  action  of 
great  personalities,  sweep  away  the  com- 
promises and  the  vacillations  of  the  vague 
general  will  ? 

We  come  thus  to  the  last-named  among 
the  instinctive  tendencies,  that  of  devotion, 
or  —  since  we  have  in  mind  the  community 
^asra  whole  —  public  spirit.  How  far  is  this 
also  to  be  enlisted  in  the  industrial  struggle? 
How  far  is  it  true  that  business  is  necessarily 
business,  and  in  no  way  to  be  confounded  or 
mixed  with  charity,  public  service,  conscious 
effort  for  general  betterment? 

That  the  altruistic  impulse  must  be  ad- 
mitted to  be  a  force  in  the  conduct  of  public 
affairs,  I  have  already  explained.  Nor  can 
it  be  contended  that  private  business  is  quite 
beyond   its   influence.     Possibly   such   mani- 

[130] 


ALTRUISM;    INSTINCT   OF   DEVOTION 

festations  as  the  pensioning  (overt  or  dis- 
guised) of  old  employees,  or  the  continued 
operation  of  factories  without  profit  for  the 
sake  of  merely  maintaining  employment, 
should  be  set  aside  as  sporadic.  But  in  the 
sphere  of  corporate  organization  we  have  at 
least  one  form  of  sustained  activity  that 
rests  on  a  sense  of  duty,  on  social  solidarity. 
The  management  of  large  corporations  through 
directors  would  not  otherwise  have  been 
possible.  We  need  not  be  reminded  that  the 
confidence  imposed  in  persons  having  fidu- 
ciary obligations,  such  as  directors  and  man- 
agers, has  too  often  been  abused.  Yet  it  is 
obvious  that  if  it  had  been  always  and  every- 
where abused,  the  whole  system  of  delegated 
management  would  long  ago  have  broken 
down.  In  the  great  majority  of  cases,  direc- 
tors have  been  zealous  and  sincere  in  promot- 
ing the  interests  of  shareholders;  and  they 
have  been  so  because  they  have  felt  a  sense  of 
honor  and  duty.  It  is  not  verbiage  or  self- 
deceit  when  we  find  men  of  affairs  declaring 
that  they  have  accepted  a  directorship  because 
[131] 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

they  believed  they  could  be  of  service.  It  is 
the  genuine  expression  of  a  sense  of  loyalty 
and  devotion  to  which  the  ordinary  condi- 
tions of  business  give  little  scope.  And  if 
there  is  combined  with  it  some  satisfaction 
of  the  love  of  distinction,  some  stimulus 
from  emulation,  we  must  remember  that 
actuation  by  a  single  motive  is  the  rarest 
of  things. 

In  the  mixture  of  motives  which  we  have 
found  in  the  desire  for  wealth  it  must  be 
admitted  that  the  altruistic  instinct  has 
played  no  large  part.  Nor  are  we  warranted 
in  expecting  that  it  will  play  a  commanding 
part  in  the  future.  The  instincts  which 
relate  to  the  narrower  self,  not  to  the  wider, 
and  more  particularly  those  of  emulation 
and  domination,  are  likely  to  remain  prepon- 
derant in  their  influence  on  industrial  activ- 
ity so  long  as  the  present  regime  of  private 
property  endures.  But  it  is  by  no  means 
out  of  the  question  that  there  shall  be  a  greater 
infiltration  of  the  spirit  of  devotion,  some 
larger  scope  for  its  satisfaction,  even  in  the 
[132] 


ALTRUISM;    INSTINCT    OF    DEVOTION 

conduct  of  private  and  competitive  industry. 
Deliberate  regard  for  the  general  welfare  is 
within  the  possibilities  of  private  business  as 
well  as  of  public.  An  immense  deal  depends, 
indeed  almost  everything  depends,  on  the 
extent  to  which  the  sense  of  social  solidarity 
is  enlarged.  The  consciousness  of  kind  —  to 
use  the  telling  though  much-abused  phrase  of 
Professor  Giddings  —  may  be  narrow  or  wide. 
That  very  example  of  loyal  devotion  which  I 
have  just  adduced  —  the  conscientious  man- 
agement of  corporate  affairs  by  directors  for 
the  benefit  of  a  large  body  of  shareholders 
—  rests  largely  on  the  circumstance  that 
directors  and  shareholders  belong  in  the  main 
to  the  same  social  stratum;  they  have  com- 
mon opinions,  common  standards,  common 
sympathies.  But  the  striking  phenomenon 
in  our  modern  world,  and  especially  in  our 
United  States,  is  the  widening  range  of  this 
gregarious  feeling,  the  consciousness  that  we  are 
all,  even  though  less  than  kin,  yet  something 
of  kind.  I  will  not  say  that  human  nature 
has  altered  during  the  last  century;  the 
[133] 


INVENTORS   AND    MONEY-MAKERS 

biologists  would  promptly  challenge  the  asser- 
tion. But  the  conditions  of  the  environment 
have  altered,  under  multiform  and  mysteri- 
ous influences,  combining  to  bring  an  unmis- 
takable strengthening  of  those  traits  which 
go  with  the  wider  self.  A  stronger  sense  of 
social  sympathy  enfolds  us  all.  This  was  the 
great  moving  force  in  the  social  legislation 
of  the  nineteenth  century;  probably  it  will 
be  a  force  of  even  greater  power  in  the  present 
century.  It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  it 
will  affect  what  we  call  private  affairs  as  much 
as  those  which  we  admit  to  be  public.  But 
under  the  subtle  influence  of  a  pervasive  senti- 
ment of  interdependence  and  of  spontaneous 
approbation  for  public-spirited  action,  greater 
regard  for  the  general  good  may  be  expected 
even  in  ordinary  pecuniary  operations.  Busi- 
ness will  not  necessarily  remain  solely  busi- 
ness. 

It  is  easy  to  be  frothy  on  a  subject  of  this 
sort.  A  friendly  minister  of  the  gospel  once 
wrote  me,  in  criticism  of  some  utterances  of 
mine  on  a  wages   dispute,   that  this  whole 

[134] 


ALTRUISM;    INSTINCT    OF    DEVOTION 

matter  could  never  be  "settled"  except 
by  "  the  application  of  the  golden  rule  to  busi- 
ness." I  prefer  to  fight  shy  of  such  large 
phrases.  Indeed  we  do  well  to  refrain  from 
expecting  anything  like  a  "  settlement. "  The 
ultimate  outcome  of  social  and  industrial 
development  is  hidden  from  our  view,  —  if 
indeed  there  be  any  ultimate  outcome.  As 
regards  the  topics  taken  up  in  these  lectures, 
we  must  be  content  to  face  and  accept  the\ 
complexity  of  human  motivation,  the  inter-  \ 
play  of  conflicting  instincts,  a  tantalizing  un- 
certainty concerning  the  possibilities  of  modi- 
fying their  relative  strength.  And  yet  we 
may  cherish  none  the  less  a  hope  that  in 
the  future  they  may  be  made  to  work  for 
human  happiness  more  effectively  than  has 
been  the  case  in  the  past. 


[135] 


INDEX  OF  NAMES 


(Names  of  authors  cited,  in  italics.     Other  names,  roman.) 
Alexander,  89. 


Batchelder,  39. 
Bell,  22. 
Bigelow,  39. 
Boulton,  34. 
Burnley,  26. 

Cartwright,    21,   22,    25,   34. 
Church,  15,  21,  30,  35,  39. 

Darwin,  31,  84. 

Dickinson,  21,  45. 

Draper,  41. 

Dyer  and  Martin,  21,  38,  43. 

Edison,  15,  16,  17,  21,  27,  42. 
Ericsson,  15,  21,  28,  35,  39. 

Fitch,  73. 
Fulton,  21,  44,  48. 


Giddings,  133. 
Goethals,  73. 
Groos,  91. 

Harriman,  87. 
Hobson,  75. 
Howe,  22. 


James,  8,  32,  80,  96,  106. 
Jayne,  24. 

Livingston,  45. 

Marbot,  113. 
Marshall,  62. 
Martin,  40,  45. 
McDougall,  8,  11,  108. 
Mergenthaler,  41. 
Mills,  41. 
Mitchell,  8. 
Morgan,  J.  P.,  87. 
Morgan,  Lloyd,  95. 
Morse,  21,  30,  47. 
Muirhead,  21,  27. 
Miinsterberg,  62. 

Napoleon,  89,  113,  129. 

Prime,  21,  31. 


Schmoller,  83. 

Senior,  76,  88. 

Siemens,  39. 

Smith,  Adam,  1,  2,  3,  51,  91 

Sombart,  5,  59,  86,  89,  100. 

Stephenson,  39. 

[137] 


INDEX 


Stichney,  88. 
Sutherland,  103,  109. 

Taussig,  111. 

Veblen,  6,  11,  85. 


Wagner,  114. 

Wallas,  6,  75,  80,  96, 108, 124. 

Washington,  129. 

Watt,  21,  27,  34,  44. 

WestermarcJc,  103. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


[138] 


T^HE    following    pages    contain    advertisements    of 
a  few  of  the  Macmillan  books  on  kindred  subjects. 


Principles  of  Economics 


By  F.    W.    TAUSSIG 

Henry  Lee  Professor  of  Economics  in  Harvard  University 

New  edition*     Cloth,  8vo,  2  vols.,  each  $  2.00 
Volume  I,  547  pages  Volume  II,  573  pages 

The  present  edition  of  Professor  Taussig's  standard  work  em- 
bodies many  changes  throughout  the  text,  thus  bringing  his  work 
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in  the  United  States  has  been  entirely  re-written ;  as  it  now  stands, 
it  includes  a  description  of  the  Federal  Reserve  Bank  system  and  a 
consideration  of  the  principles  underlying  the  new  legislation.  The 
chapter  on  trusts  and  combinations  has  been  largely  re-written,  with 
reference  to  the  laws  enacted  in  1914.  Considerable  addition  and 
revision  has  been  made  in  the  chapter  on  workmen's  insurance, 
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A  NEW  IMPORTANT   WORK 


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By  A.  BARTON   HEPBURN,  LL.D. 

Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Chase  National  Bank,  formerly 
Comptroller  of  the  Currency,  ex-Superintendent  of  Banks  of  the  State 
of  New  York,  ex-President  of  the  New  York  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce and  ex- President  of  the  New  York  Clearing  House 

Cloth,  8vo,  $2.50 

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1903,  but  that  earlier  book  has  been  rewritten  and  supplemented  so  that 
as  now  issued  it  covers  the  period  from  the  adoption  of  the  United  States 
Constitution  to  the  present  day.  It  deals  fully  and  explicitly  with  our 
coinage  laws  and  coinage  by  mints ;  it  gives  the  complete  history  of  the 
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tory of  the  silver  controversy,  and  sets  forth  the  various  international 
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AN  IMPORTANT   NEW   BOOK 

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Study  in  Personal  Efficiency 

By  ENOCH   BURTON    GOWIN 

Of  the  New  York  University  School  of  Commerce 

Cloth,'  J  2  mo 

The  author's  primary  aim  in  this  book  is  to  increase  one's 
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IMPORTANT  NEW  WORKS 

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The  Wealth  and  Income  of  the  People  of  the 
United  States 

By  WILLFORD  I.  KING,  Ph.D. 

Instructor  in  Political  Economy  and  Statistics  in  the 
University  of  Wisconsin 

Cloth,  i2tno,  $i.J0 

Why  are  some  of  the  people  so  very  rich  and  others  so  very  poor?  Is  this 
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If  wealth  and  income  were  equally  distributed,  could  every  one  live  in  luxury? 
Are  we  coming  more  and  more  under  the  domination  of  private  corporations? 
Are  we  tending  toward  socialism?  What  are  the  signs  of  the  future?  These 
are  some  of  the  problems  upon  which  the  author  throws  the  searching  and 
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The  Modern  Trust  Company 

Its  Functions  and  Organization 


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and  Granting  Annuities 

and  J.  E.  STERRETT,  C.P.A. 

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All  references  to  laws  and  to  clearing  house  or  stock  ex- 
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"  No  detail  of  trust  company  functioning  appears  to  have  escaped  the 
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management  of  such  concerns."  —  Outlook. 

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"  A  book  of  practice  rather  than  theory  —  the  most  modern  and  best 
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